THE BRIDGEWATER TREATISES 



POWER, WISDOM, AND GOODNESS OF GOD, AS MANIFESTED 
IN THE CREATION. 



TREATISE I. 



ON THE ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL 
CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 



BY THE REV. T. CHALMERS, D. D. 



ON THE 



POWER, WISDOM, AND GOODNESS 



OF 



GOD, 




AS 



D IN THE ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE MORAL AND 



INTELLECTUAL CONSTITUTION 



OF 



MAN 




BY THE 

REV. THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D. 

PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH 




A NEW EDITION, 



PHILADELPHIA: 
CAREY, LEA & BLANCHARD. 



1836 






r,M c 



/ 



TO THE 



//<?; 



fC 



RIGHT HONOURABLE AND RIGHT REVEREND 

CHARLES JAMES, 



LORD BISHOP OF LONDON. 



MY LORD, 

Your Lordship's personal kindness to myself would alone have inclined me 
to solicit for this work the honour of your patronage and name. 

But I must further confess the peculiar satisfaction which I feel, in offering 
it as a tribute and a public acknowledgment of my admiration for an order of 
men, who, more than all others, have enriched by their labours the moral and 
theological literature of England. 

In tL prosecution of that arduous and hitherto almost unattempted theme 
which the late President of the Royal Society has, by your Lordship's recom- 
mendation, assigned to me, I have derived greater aid from the views and rea- 
sonings of Bishop Butler, than I have been able to find besides, in the whole 
range of our existent authorship. 

With his powerful aid I commenced the high investigation to which your 
Lordship has called me. To imagine that I have completed it, would be to 
forget at once the fulness of the Creation, and the finitude of the Creature. 
Whatever the department of Nature may be which we explore, in quest of evi- 
dence for the perfections of its Author, there is no inquirer, though even of the 
most transcendent powers, who shall ever attain the satisfaction of having tra- 
versed the whole-length and breadth of the land. He will have but entered 
and proceeded a certain way, within the margin of a territory, whose riches 
are inexhaustible. 

That your Lordship may long continue, by your zeal, and talents, and lofty 
erudition, to sustain the honours, and to promote the vital good of our Religious 
Establishments in this empire, is the fervent desire and prayer of 

My Lord, 
Your Lordship's most obliged 
and obedient Servant, 

Thomas Chalmers. 

Edln. May 13, 1833. 

1* 



NOTICE. 



The series of Treatises, of which the present is one, is published under the 
following circumstances : 

The Right Honourable and Reverend Francis Henry, Earl of Bridge- 
water, died in the month of February, 1829 ; and by his last Will and Testa- 
ment, bearing date the 25th of February, 1825, he directed certain Trustees 
therein named to invest in the public funds the sum of Eight thousand pounds 
sterling; this sum, with the accruing dividends thereon, to be held at the dis- 
posal of the President, for the time being, of the Royal Society of London, to 
be paid to the person or persons nominated by him. The Testator further di- 
rected, that the person or persons selected by the said President should be ap- 
pointed to write, print, and publish one thousand copies of a work On the Pow- 
er, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation ,• illustrating such 
work by all reasonable arguments, as for instance the variety and formation of God's 
creatures in the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms ; the effect of digestion, 
and thereby of conversion ,• the construction of the hand of man, and an infinite va- 
riety of other arguments ,• as also by discoveries ancient and modern, in arts, sciences, 
and the whole extent of literature. He desired, moreover, that the profits arising 
from the sale of the works so published should be paid to the authors of the 
works. 

The late President of the Royal Society, Davies Gilbert, Esq. requested the 
assistance of his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury and of the Bishop of 
London, in determining upon the best mode of carrying into effect the inten- 
tions of the Testator. Acting with their advice, and with the concurrence of a 
nobleman immediately connected with the deceased, Mr. Davies Gilbert ap- 
pointed the following eight gentlemen to write separate Treatises on the differ- 
ent branches of the subject as here stated : 

THE REV. THOMAS CHALMERS, D. D. 

PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. 

ON THE ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL 
CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 



JOHN KIDD, M. D. F. R. S. 

REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 
ON THE ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE PHYSICAL CONDITION OF MAN. 



Ylll NOTICE. 

THE REV. WILLIAM WHEWELL, M. A. F. R. S. 

FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 

ON ASTRONOMY AND GENERAL PHYSICS CONSIDERED WITH REFERENCE TO NATURAL 

THEOLOGY. 



SIR CHARLES BELL, K. H. F. R. S. L. & E. 

THE HAND : ITS MECHANISM AND VITAL ENDOWMENTS AS EVINCING DESIGN. 



PETER MARK ROGET, M. D. 

FELLOW OF AND SECRETARY TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 
ON ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY. 



THE REV. WILLIAM BUCKLAND, D. D. F. R. S. 

CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH, AND PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 
ON GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. 



THE REV. WILLIAM KIRBY, M. A. F. R. S. 

ON THE HISTORY, HABITS, AND INSTINCTS OF ANIMALS. 



WILLIAM PROUT, M. D. F. R. S. 

ON CHEMISTRY, METEOROLOGY, AND THE FUNCTION OF DIGESTION. 



His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex, President of the Royal Society, 
having desired that no unnecessary delay should take place in the publication 
of the above-mentioned treatises, they will appear at short intervals, as they 
are ready for publication. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER, - - - - - - -13 

PART I. 

On the Adaptation of External Nature to the 
Moral Constitution of Man. 

Chap. 1. On the Supremacy of Conscience, - . - - 36 

II. Second General Argument. 

On the Inherent Pleasure of the Virtuous, and Misery of the 

Vicious Affections, - - - - 55 

III. Third General Argument. 

The Power and Operation of Habit, - - - .71 

IV. On the General Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral 

Constitution of Man, - - - - 82 

V. On the Special and Subordinate Adaptations of External Nature 

to the Moral Constitution of Man, - - 95 

VI. On those Special Affections which conduce to the Civil and Po- 
litical well-being of Society, - 109 

VII. On those Special Affections which conduce to the Economic 

well-being of Society, ----- 139 

VIII. On the Relation in which the Special Affections of our Nature 
stand to Virtue ; and on the Demonstration given forth by 
it, both to the Character of man and the Character of God, 162 

IX. Miscellaneous Evidences of Virtuous and Benevolent Design, 
in the Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral Consti- 
tution of Man, - - - - - - 170 

X. On the Capacities of the World for making a virtuous Species 
happy; and the Argument deducible from this, both for the 
Character of God and the Immortality of Man, - - 182 



X CONTENTS. 

PART II. 

On the Adaptation of External Nature to the Intellectual 
Constitution of Man. 

Chap. I. Chief Instances of this Adaptation, - 198 

II. On the Connexion between the Intellect and the Emotions, - 221 

III. On the Connexion between the Intellect and the Will, - 238 

IV. On the Defects and the uses of Natural Theology, - - 256 



PREFACE 




It is an incongruous thing, when there is any want of conformity be- 
tween the subject matter of an essay, and its title. The object of this 
explanatory preface is to show that it is an incongruity into which we 
have not fallen. 

In the first place we were not in fair circumstances for expounding 
the adaptation of external nature to the mental constitution of man, till 
we had made manifest in some degree what that constitution is. There 
is no distinct labourer in that conjunct demonstration of the divine attri- 
butes which is now being offered to the world, to whom this essentially 
preliminary topic had been assigned as the subject of a separate work. 
It was therefore unavoidable, that, to a certain extent we should under- 
take it ourselves, else, in proceeding to the construction of our argument, 
we might have incurred the charge of attempting to rear a superstruc- 
ture, without a foundation to rest upon. 

But in the execution of this introductory part of our subject, we could 
scarcely have refrained from noticing the indications of divine wisdom 
and goodness in our mental constitution itself, even though our strictly 
proper, because our assigned task, was to point out these indications in 
the adaptation of this constitution to external nature. We could not for- 
get that the general purpose of the work was to exhibit with all possible 
fulness the argument for the character of the Deity, as grounded on the 
laws and appearances of nature. But we should have left out a very 
rich and important track of argument, had we forborne all observation 
on the evidence for the divine perfections, in the structure and processes 
of the mind itself, and confined ourselves to the evidence afforded by the 
relations which the mind bore to the external world. In the adaptation 
of external nature to man's physical constitution, there are many beauti- 
ful and decisive indications of a God. But prior to these, there is a 
multitude of distinct indications, both in the human anatomy, and the 
human physiology, viewed by themselves, and as separate objects of 
contemplation. And accordingly, in this joint undertaking, there have 
been specific labourers assigned to each of these departments. But we 
have not had the advantage of any previous expounder for the anatomy 
of the mind, or the physiology of the mind ; and we felt that to have left 
unnoticed all the vivid and various inscriptions of a Divinity, which 
might be collected there, would have been to withhold from view some 
of the best attestations in the whole range and economy of nature, for 
the wisdom and benevolence of its great architect. 

But to construct a natural theology on any subject, it is not necessary 
to make of that subject a full scientific exposition. The one is as distinct 
from the other, as the study of final is from the study of efficient causes 
— the former often lying patent to observation, while the latter may be 



Xll PREFACE. 

still involved in deepest obscurity. It were a manifest injury to our 
cause, it were to bedim the native lustre of its evidences — did we enter 
with it among the recondite places of the mental philosophy, and there 
enwrap it in the ambiguity of questions yet unresolved, in the mist of 
controversies yet unsettled. Often, though not always, the argument 
for a God in some phenomenon of nature depends upon its reality, and 
not upon its analysis, or the physical mode of its organization — on the 
undoubted truth that so it is, and not on the undetermined, perhaps inde- 
terminable question of how it is. We should not have shrunk from the 
obscurer investigation, had it been at all necessary. But that is no rea- 
son why time must be consumed on matters which are at once obscure 
and irrelevant. It is all the more fortunate that we are not too long 
detained from an entry on our proper task, among the depths or the dif- 
ficulties of any preliminary disquisition which comes before it — and that 
the main strength of the argument which our mental constitution, taken 
by itself, furnishes to the cause of theism, lies not in those subtilties 
which are apprehended only by few, but in certain broad and palpable 
generalities which are recognised by all men. 

But there is another explanation which we deem it necessary to make, 
in order fully to reconcile the actual topics of our essay, with the desig- 
nation which has been prefixed to it. 

If by external nature be meant all that is external to mind, then the 
proper subject of our argument is the adaptation of the material to the 
mental world. But if by external nature be meant all that is external to 
one individual mind, then would the subject be very greatly extended ; 
for beside the reciprocal influence between that individual mind, and all 
sensible and material things, we should consider the reciprocal influence 
between it and all other minds. By this contraction of the idea from the 
mental world to but one individual member of it; and this proportional 
extension in the idea of external nature from the material creation to the 
whole of that living, as well as inanimate creation, by which any single 
man is surrounded ; we are introduced not merely to the action and re- 
action which obtain between mind and matter ; but, which is far more 
prolific of evidence for a Deity, to the action and reaction which obtain 
between mind and mind. We thus find access to a much larger terri- 
tory, which should otherwise be left unexplored — and have the oppor- 
tunity of tracing the marks of a divine intelligence in the mechanism 
of human society, and in the framework of the social and economical 
systems to which men are conducted, when they adhere to that light, 
and follow the impulse of those affections which Qod has bestowed on 
them, jh* 

Burin the progress of our argument, we come at length to be engaged 
with the adaptations of external nature, e\ en in the most strict and limited 
sense pfthe term. In the origin and rights of property, as well as in the 
various economic interests <>f society, we behold the purest exemplifica- 
tion of that adjustment which obtains between the material system of 
things and man's moral nature — and when we proceed to treat o( his 
int< llectual constitution, it will be found thai the harmonies between the 
material and the mental worlds are still more numerous, and more pal- 
pably indicative of that wisdom which originated both, and conformed 
them with exquisite and profound skill to each other. 




V 

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

GENERAL AND PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.-) ^ 

1. External nature, when spoken of in contradistinction to mind, 
suggests chiefly, if not solely, the idea of the material universe. 
Even though restricted to this limited and proper sense of the term, 
we should still behold the proofs of beneficent design in the fitnesses 
of the one to the other ; but far more abundantly and decisively, it 
must be confessed, in the adaptation of external nature to the physi- 
cal, than in its adaptation to the moral and intellectual constitution 
of man. For fully developing our peculiar argument, an enlarge- 
ment of the meaning commonly affixed to external nature seems in- 
dispensable, — an enlargement that we should not have ventured on, 
if in so doing we crossed the legitimate boundaries of our assigned 
subject; and that, for the mere purpose of multiplying our topics, 
or possessing ourselves of a wider field of authorship. But the truth 
is, that did we confine our notice to the relations which obtain be- 
tween the world of mind and the world of matter, we should be 
doing injustice to our own theme, by spoiling it of greatly more than 
half its richness — beside leaving unoccupied certain fertile tracts of 
evidence, which, if not entered upon in our division of the general 
work, must, as is obvious from the nature of the respective tasks, 
be altogether omitted in the conjunct demonstration that is now 
being offered to the public, of the Goodness and Wisdom of the 
Deity. 

2. It is true that, with even but one solitary human mind in the 
midst of the material creation, certain relations could be traced be- 
tween them that would indicate both skill and a benevolent purpose 
on the part of Him who constructed the framework of nature, and 
placed this single occupier within its confines. And, notwithstand- 
ing this limitation, there would still be preserved to us certain striking 
adaptations in the external system of things to the intellectual, and 
some too, though fewer and less noticeable, to the moral constitu- 
tion of man. But, born as man obviously is for the companionship 
of his fellows, it must be evident that the main tendencies and apti- 
tudes of his moral constitution should be looked for in connexion 
with his social relationships, with the action and re-action which 
take place between man and the brethren of his species. We there- 
fore understand external nature to comprehend in it, not merely all 
that is external to mind, but all that is external to the individual 

2 



14 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

possessor of a human mind, — who is surrounded not only by an 
economy of complex and extended materialism, but who is sur- 
rounded by other men and other minds than his own. Without this 
generalized view of external nature, w r e should be left in possession 
of but scanty materials for evincing its adaptation to the moral con- 
stitution of man, though an ample field of observation w r ould still lie 
open to us, in unfolding the aptitude of the human understanding, 
with its various instincts and powers, for the business of physical 
investigation. For the purpose then of enhancing our argument, or 
rather of doing but justice to it, we propose to consider not merely 
those relations between mind and matter, but those relations between 
mind and mind, the establishment of which attests a wise and bene- 
ficent contrivance. We shall thus be enabled to enter on a depart- 
ment of observation distinct from that of all the other labourers in 
this joint enterprise, — and while their provinces respectively are to 
trace the hand of a great and good Designer in the mechanism of 
the heavens, or the mechanism of the terrestrial physics, or the 
mechanism of various organic structures in the animal and vegeta- 
ble kingdoms ; it will be part of ours, more especially, to point out 
the evidences of a forming and presiding, and w 7 ithal benevolent 
intelligence in the mechanism of human society. 

3. We conceive of external nature then that it comprehends more 
than the mute and unconscious materialism, and the objective truth 
— it comprehends also the living society by which the possessor of 
a moral and intellectual constitution is surrounded. Did we exclude 
the latter from our regards, we should be keeping out of view a 
number of as wise, and certainly, in the degree that mind is of higher 
consideration than body, of far more beneficial and important adap- 
tations than any which are presented to our notice in the mechanical, 
or chemical, or physiological departments of creation. Both in the 
reciprocities of domestic life, and in those wider relations, which bind 
large assemblages of men into political and economical systems, we 
shall discern the incontestable marks of a divine wisdom and care- 
principles or laws of human nature in virtue of which the social 
economy moves rightly and prosperously onward, and apart from 
which all would go into derangement ; affinities between man and 
his fellows, that harmonize the individual with the general interests, 
and are obviously designed as provisions for the well-being both of 
families and nations. 

4. It might help to guard us against a possible misconception, if 
now, at the outset of our argument, we shall distinguish between the 
moral constitution of man, and thai moral system of doctrine which 
embodies in it the outer truths or principles of ethical science. The 
two are as distinct from each Other, as are the objective and subjec- 
tive in any quarter of contemplation whatever, and ought no more 
to be confounded than, in optics, the system o( visible things with 
the anatomical structure of the eye. The organ which percen 
14 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 15 

apprehends truth is separate in reality, and should be kept separate 
in thought, from the truth which is apprehended ; and thus it is that 
we should view the moral constitution of man and the moral system 
of virtue as diverse and distinct from each other. The one belongs 
to the physiology of the mind, and is collected, like all other experi- 
mental truth, by a diligent observation of facts and phenomena. 
The other, involving, as it does, those questions which relate to the 
nature of virtue, or to the origin and principles of moral obligation, 
directs the attention of the mind to another quarter than to its own 
processes, and presents us with a wholly distinct matter of contem- 
plation. The acts of moral judgment or feeling should not be con- 
founded with the objects of moral judgment or feeling, any more, in 
fact, than the rules of logic should be confounded with the laws 
which govern the procedure of the human understanding. The 
question, " what is virtue V 9 or " what is that which constitutes vir- 
tue V 9 is one thing. The question, " what is the mental process by 
which man takes cognisance of virtue ?" is another. They are as 
distinct from each other as are the principles of good reasoning from 
the processes of the reasoning faculty. It is thus that the mental 
philosophy, whose proper and legitimate province is the physics of 
the mind, should be kept distinct from logic and ethics, and the phi- 
losophy of taste. The question, " what is beautiful in scenery f" or 
"what is right in character?" or "what is just in argument?" is 
distinct from the question, " what is the actual and historical proce- 
dure of the mind in addressing itself to these respective objects of 
contemplation?" as distinct, indeed, as the question of " Quid est 99 
is from " Quid oportet;" or as the question of " what is" from " what 
ought to be."* A sound objective system of ethics may be framed, 
irrespective|Of any attention that we give to man's moral constitu- 
tion. A sound system of logic may be framed, irrespective of any 
attention that we give to man's intellectual constitution. And on 
the other hand, however obscure or unsettled these sciences may 
still be ; and more especially, whatever controversies may yet ob- 
tain respecting the nature and the elementary principles of virtue, — 
such notwithstanding, may be the palpable and ascertained facts in 
the nature and history of subjective man, that, both on his mental 
constitution, and on the adaptation thereto of external nature, there 
might remain a clear and unquestionable argument for the power, 
and wisdom, and goodness of God. 

5. Having thus referred our argument, not to the constitution of 
morality in the abstract, but to the constitution of man's moral na- 

* See the Introduction of Sir James Mackintosh's Ethical Dissertation. "The 
purpose of the physical sciences, throughout all their provinces, is to answer the 
question u What is?" The purpose of the moral sciences is to answer the question, 
" What ought to he?" — It should be well kept in view, that mental philosophy is 
one province of the physical sciences, and belongs to the first of these two depart- 
ments, being distinct from moral philosophy, which forms the second of them. 

15 



16 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

ture — a concrete and substantive reality, made up of facts that come 
within the domain of observation ; let us now consider how it is 
that natural theology proceeds with her demonstrations, on other 
constitutions and other mechanisms in creation, that we may learn 
from this in what manner we should commence and prosecute our 
labours, on that very peculiar, we had almost said, untried field of 
investigation which has been assigned to us. 

G. The chief then, or at least the usual subject-matter of the argu- 
ment for the wisdom and goodness of God, is the obvious adapta- 
tion wherewith creation teems, throughout all its borders, of means 
to a beneficial end. And it is manifest that the argument grows in 
strength with the number and complexity of these means. The 
greater the number of independent circumstances which must meet 
together for the production of a useful result — then, in the actual 
fact of their concurrence, is there less of probability for its being the 
effect of chance, and more of evidence for its being the effect of 
design. A beneficent combination of three independent elements is 
not so impressive or so strong an argument for a divinity, as a simi- 
lar combination of six or ten such elements. And every mathemati- 
cian, conversant in the doctrine of probabilities, knows how with 
every addition to the number of these elements, the argument grows 
in force and intensity, with a rapid and multiple augmentation — till 
at length, in some of the more intricate and manifold conjunctions, 
those more particularly having an organic character and structure, 
could we but trace them to an historical commencement, we should 
find, on the principles of computation alone, that the argument 
against their being fortuitous products, and for their being the products 
of a scheming and skilful artificer, was altogether overpowering. 

7. We might apply this consideration to various departments in 
nature. In astronomy, the independent elements seem but few and 
simple, which must meet together for the composition of a planeta- 
rium. One uniform law of gravitation, with a force of projection 
impressed by one impulse on each of the bodies, could suffice to 
account for the revolutions of the planets round the sun, and of the 
satellites around their primaries, along with the diurnal revolution 
of each, and the varying inclinations of the axes to the planes of 
their respective orbits. Out of such few contingencies, the actual 
orrery of the heavens has been framed. But in anatomy, to fetch 
the opposite illustration from another science, what a complex and 
crowded combination of individual elements must first be effected, 
(ire we obtain the composition of an eye, — for the completion oi 
which mechanism, there; musl not only be a greater Dumber o[ 
separate; laws, as of refraction and muscular action ami secretion: 
but a vastly greater number of separate ami distinct parts, as the 
lenses, and the retina, and tlit; optic nerve, and the eye-lid and eye- 
lashes, ami the various muscles wherewith this delicate organ is so 
curiously beset, and each o( which is indispensable to its perfection, 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 17 

or to the right performance of its functions. It is passing marvel- 
lous that we should have more intense evidence for a God in the 
construction of an eye, than in the construction of the mighty pla- 
netarium — or that, within less than the compass of a hand breadth, 
we should find in this lower world a more pregnant and legible in- 
scription of the Divinity, than can be gathered from a broad and 
magnificent survey of the skies, lighted up though they be, with the 
glories and the wonders of astronomy. 

8. But while nothing can be more obvious than that the proof for 
design in any of the natural formations, is the stronger, in proportion 
to the number of separate and independent elements which have 
been brought together, and each of which contributes essentially to 
its usefulness — we have long held it of prime importance to the 
theistical argument, that clear exhibition should be made of a dis- 
tinction not generally adverted to, which obtains between one set of 
these elements and another. We shall illustrate this by a materia], 
ere we apply it to a mental workmanship. 

9. There is, then, a difference of great argumentative importance 
in this whole question, between the Laws of Matter and the Dispo- 
sitions of matter. In astronomy, for example, when attending to the 
mechanism of the planetary system, w r e should instance at most but 
two laws — the law of gravitation ; and perhaps the law of perse- 
verance, on the part of all bodies, whether in a state of rest or of 
motion, till interrupted by some external cause. But had we to 
state the dispositions of matter in the planetary system, we should 
instance a greater number of particulars. We should describe the 
arrangement of its various parts, whether in respect to situation, or 
magnitude, or figure — as the position of a large and luminous mass 
in the centre, and of the vastly smaller but opaque masses which 
circulated around it, but at such distances as not to interfere with 
each other, and of the still smaller secondary bodies which revolved 
about the planets : And we should include in this description the 
impulses in one direction, and nearly in one plane, given to the 
different moving bodies ; and so regulated, as to secure the move- 
ment of each, in an orbit of small eccentricity. The dispositions of 
matter in the planetary system were fixed at the original setting up 
of the machine. The laws of matter were ordained for the working 
of the machine. The former, that is the dispositions, make up the 
frame-work, or what may be termed the apparatus of the system. 
The latter, that is the laws, uphold the performance of it. 

10. Now the tendency of atheistical writers is to reason exclu- 
sively on the laws of matter, and to overlook its dispositions. Could 
all the beauties and benefits of the astronomical system be referred 
to the single law of gravitation, it would greatly reduce the strength 
of the argument for a designing cause. La Place, as if to fortify 
still more the atheism of such a speculation, endeavoured to demon- 
strate of this law — that, in respect of its being inversely proportional 

2 * 17 



18 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

to the square of the distance from the centre, it is an essential 
property of matter. La Grange had previously established — that 
but for such a proportion, or by the deviation of a thousandth part 
from it, the planetary system would go into derangement — or, in 
other words, that the law, such as it is, was essential to the sta- 
bility of the present mundane constitution. La Place would have 
accredited the law, the unconscious and unintelligent law, that thing 
according to him of blind necessity, with the whole of this noble and 
beautiful result — overlooking what La Grange held to be indispensa- 
ble as concurring elements in his demonstration of it — certain 
dispositions along with the law — such as the movement of all the 
planets, first in one direction, second nearly in one plane, and then 
in nearly circular orbits. We are aware that according to the 
discoveries, or rather perhaps to the guesses of some later analysts, 
the three last circumstances might be dispensed with ; and yet not- 
withstanding, the planetary system, its errors still remaining periodi- 
cal, would in virtue of the single law oscillate around a mean state 
that should be indestructible and everlasting. Should this come to 
be a conclusively settled doctrine in the science, it will extenuate, 
we admit, the argument for a designing cause in the formation of 
the planetarium. But it will not annihilate that argument — for there 
do remain certain palpable utilities in the dispositions as well as laws 
of the planetary system, acknowledged by all the astronomers ; such 
as the vastly superior weight and quantity of matter accumulated in 
its centre, and the local establishment there of that great fountain of 
light and heat from which the surrounding worlds receive through- 
out the whole of their course an equable dispensation. What a mal- 
adjustment would it have been, had the luminous and the opaque 
matter changed places in the firmament; or the planets, by the 
eccentricity of their orbits, been subject to such vicissitudes of tem- 
perature, as would certainly, in our own at least, have entailed 
destruction both on the animal and vegetable kingdoms, 

11. But whatever defect or doubtfulness of evidence there may be 
in the mechanism of the heavens — this is amply made up tor in a 
more accessible mechanism, near at hand. If either the dispositions 
of matter in the former mechanism be so lew, or the demonstrable 
results of its single law be so independent of them, that the agency 
of design rather than of necessity or chance he less manifest than it 
otherwise would be in the astronomical system; nothing on the 
other hand can exceed the force and concentration oi' that proof, 
which is crowded to so marvellousa degree of enhancement within 
the limits of the anatomical system. It is this which enables us to 
draw so much weightier an argument for a God, from the construc- 
tion of an eye than from the construction of a planetarium. And 
here it. is quite palpable, that it is in the dispositions o\ matter, more 
than in the laws of matter, where the mam strength of the argument 
lies, though we hear much more of the wisdom of Nature's law s. thai* 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 19 

of the wisdom of her collocations. * Now it is true that the law of 
refraction is indispensable to the faculty of vision ; but the laws in- 
dispensable to this result are greatly outnumbered by the dispositions 
which are indispensable to it — such as the rightly sized and shaped 
lenses of the eye; and the rightly placed retina spread out behind them, 
and at the precise distance where the indispensable picture of external 
nature might be formed, and presented as it were for the informa- 
tion of the occupier within ; and then, the variety and proper situa- 
tion of the numerous muscles, each entrusted with an important 
function, and all of them contributing to the power and perfection of 
this curious and manifoldly complicated organ. It is not so much 
the endowment of matter with certain properties, as the arrange- 
ment of it into certain parts, that bespeaks here the hand of an 
artist ; and this will be found true of the anatomical structure in all 
its departments. It is not the mere chemical property of the gastric 
juice that impresses the belief of contrivance ; but the presence of 
the gastric juice, in the very situation whence it comes forth to act 
with advantage on the food, when received into the stomach, and 
there submitted to a digestive process for the nourishment of the 
animal economy. It is well to distinguish these two things. If we 
but say of matter that it is furnished with such powers as make it 
subservient to. many useful results, we keep back the strongest and 
most unassailable part of the argument for a God. It is greatly 
more pertinent and convincing to say of matter, that it is distributed 
into such parts as to ensure a right direction and a beneficial appli- 
cation for its pow r ers. It is not so much in the establishment of 
certain laws for matter, that we discern the aims or the purposes of 
intelligence, as in certain dispositions of matter, that put it in the 
way of being usefully operated upon by the laws. Insomuch, that 
though we conceded to the atheist, the eternity of matter, and the 
essentially inherent character of all its law T s — we could still point 
out to him, in the manifold adjustments of matter, its adjustments of 

•This distinction between the laws and collocations of matter is overlooked by 
atheistical writers, as in the following- specimen from the "Systeme de la Nature" of 
Mirabaud. " These prejudiced dreamers," speaking 1 of believers in a God, M are in 
an ecstacy at the sight of the periodical motion of the planets ; at the order of the 
stars; at the various productions of the earth ; at the astonishing 1 harmony in the 
component parts of animals. In that moment, however, they forget the laws of 
motion; the power of gravitation; the forces of attraction and repulsion; they 
assign all these striking phenomena to unknown causes, of which they have no one 
substantive idea." 

When Professor Robison felt alarmed by the attempted demonstration of La 
Place, that the law of gravitation was an essential property of matter, lest the cause 
of natural theology should be endangered by it — he might have recollected that the 
main evidence for a Divinity lies not in the laws of matter, but in their collocations 
— because of the utter inadequacy in the existing laws to have originated the exis- 
ting collocations of the material world. So that if ever a time was, when these 
collocations were not — there is no virtue in the laws that can account for their 
commencement, or that supersedes the fiat of a God. 



20 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

place, and figure, and magnitude, the most impressive signatures of 
a Deity. And what a countless variety of such adjustments within 
the compass of an animal, or even a vegetable frame-work. In 
particular, what an amount and condensation of evidence for a God 
in the workmanship of the human body. What bright and con- 
vincing lessons of theology might man, (would he but open his eyes,) 
read on his own person — that microcosm of divine art, where as in 
the sentences of a perfect epitome, he might trace in every linea- 
ment or member the finger and authorship of the Godhead. 

12. In the performances of human art, the argument for design 
that is grounded on the useful dispositions of matter, stands com- 
pletely disentangled from the argument that is grounded on the 
useful laws of matter — for in every implement or piece of mechanism 
constructed by the hands of man, it is in the latter apart from the 
former, that the indications of contrivance wholly and exclusively 
lie. We do not accredit man with the establishment of any laws 
for matter — yet he leaves enough by which to trace the operations 
of his intelligence in the collocations of matter. He does not give 
to matter any of its properties ; but he arranges it into parts — and 
by such arrangement alone, does he impress upon his workmanship 
the incontestable marks of design ; not in that he has communicated 
any powers to matter, but in that he has intelligently availed himself 
of these powers, and directed them to an obviously beneficial result. 
The watch-maker did not give its elasticity to the main-spring, nor 
its regularity to the balance wheel, nor its transparency to the glass, 
nor the momentum of its varying forces to the levers of his mecha- 
nism — yet is the whole replete with the marks of intelligence not- 
withstanding, announcing throughout the hand of a maker who had 
an eye on all these properties, and assigned the right place and 
adjustment to each of them, in fashioning and bringing together the 
parts of an instrument for the measurement and the indication of 
time. Now, the same distinction can be observed in all the speci- 
mens of natural mechanism. It is true that we accredit the author 
of these with the creation and laws of matter, as well as its disposi- 
tions ; but this does not hinder its being in the latter and not in the 
former, where the manifestations of skill arc most apparent, or 
where the chief argument for a divinity lies. The truth is. that 
mere laws, without collocations, would have afforded no security 
against a turbid and disorderly chaos. One can imagine of all the 
substantive things which enter into the composition of a watch, that 
they may have been huddled together, without shape, and without 
collocation, into a little chaos, or confused medley; — where, in full 
possession of all the properties which belong to the matter o[ the 
instrument, but without its dispositions, every evidence of skill would 

have been wholly obliterated. And it is even so with all the sub- 
stantive things which enter into the composition o( a world. Take 
but their forms and collocations away from them, and this goodly 
20 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 21 

universe would instantly lapse into a heaving and disorderly chaos 
— yet without stripping matter of any of its properties or powers. 
There might still, though operating with random and undirected 
activity, be the laws of impulse, and gravitation, and magnetism, and 
temperature, and light, and the forces of chemistry, and even those 
physiological tendencies, which, however abortive in a state of 
primitive rudeness, or before the spirit of a God moved on the face 
of the waters, waited but a right distribution of the parts of the 
matter, to develope into the full effect and establishment of animal 
and vegetable kingdoms. The thing wanted for the evolution of 
this chaos into an orderly and beneficial system is not the endowing 
of matter with right properties ; but the forming of it into things of 
right shape and magnitude, and the marshalling of these into right 
places. This last alone would suffice for bringing harmony out of 
confusion ; and, apart altogether from the first, or, without involving 
ourselves in the metaphysical obscurity of those questions which 
relate to the origination of matter and to the distinction between its 
arbitrary and essential properties, might we discern, in the mere 
arrangements of matter, the most obvious and decisive signatures of 
the artist hand which has been employed on it. 

13. That is a fine generalization by the late Professor Robison, of 
Edinburgh, which ranges all philosophy into two sciences — one the 
science of contemporaneous nature; the other, the science of 
successive nature. When the material world is viewed according 
to this distinction, the whole science of its contemporaneous phe- 
nomena is comprehended by him under the general name of Natural 
History, which takes cognisance of all those characters in external 
nature that exist together at the instant, and which may be described 
without reference to time — as smell, and colour, and size, and 
weight, and form, and relation of parts, whether of the simple inor- 
ganic or more complex organic structures. But when the elements 
of time and motion are introduced, we are then presented with the 
phenomena of successive nature ; and the science that embraces 
these is, in contradistinction to the former, termed Natural Philoso- 
phy. This latter science may be separated or subdivided further 
into natural philosophy, strictly and indeed usually so called, whose 
province it is to investigate those changes which take effect in bodies 
by motions that are sensible and measurable ; and chemistry, or the 
science of those changes w 7 hich take effect in bodies by motions 
which are not sensible, or, at least, not measurable, and which 
cannot therefore be made the subjects of mathematical computation 
or reasoning. This last, again, is capable of being still further par- 
titioned into the science which investigates the changes effected by 
means of insensible motion in all inorganic matter, or chemistry 
strictly and usually so called ; and the science of physiology, whose 
province it is to investigate the like changes that take place in 
organic bodies, whether of the animal or vegetable kingdoms. 



22 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

14. Or, the distinction between these two sciences of contempo- 
raneous and successive nature may otherwise be stated thus. The 
one, or natural history, is conversant with objects — the other, or 
natural philosophy in its most comprehensive meaning, is conversant 
with events. It is obvious that the dispositions of matter come 
within the province of the former science — while the laws of matter, 
or the various moving forces by which it is actuated, fall more 
properly under the inquiries of the latter science. Now, adopting 
this nomenclature, we hold it a most important assertion for the 
cause of natural theology, that should all the present arrangements 
of our existing natural history be destroyed, there is no power in the 
laws of our existing natural philosophy to replace them. Or, in other 
words, if ever a time was, when the structure and dispositions of 
matter, under the present economy of things were not — there is no 
force known in nature, and no combination of forces that can ac- 
count for their commencement. The laws of nature may keep up 
the working of the machinery — but they did not and could not set 
up the machine. The human species, for example, may be up- 
holden, through an indefinite series of ages, by the established law of 
transmission — but were the species destroyed, there are no observed 
powers of nature by which it could again be originated. For the 
continuance of the system and of all its operations, we might ima- 
gine a sufficiency in the laws of nature ; but it is the first construc- 
tion of the system which so palpably calls for the intervention of an 
artificer, or demonstrates so powerfully the fiat and finger of a God. 

15. This distinction between nature's laws and nature's colloca- 
tions is mainly lost sight of in those speculations of geology, the ob- 
ject of which is to explain the formation of new systems emerging 
from the wreck of old ones. They proceed on the sufficiency of 
nature's laws for building up the present economy of things out of 
the ruins of a former economy, which the last great physical catas- 
trophe on the face of our earth had overthrown. Now, in these 
ruins, viewed as materials for the architecture of a renovated world, 
there did reside all those forces, by which the processes of the exist- 
ing economy are upholden; but the geologists assign to them a 
function wholly distinct from this, when they labour to demonstrate, 
that by laws, and laws alone, the framework of our existing econo- 
my was put together. It is thus that they would exclude the agency 
of a God from the transition between one system, or one formation, 
and another, although it be precisely at such transition when this 
agency seems most palpably and peculiarly called for. We feel 
assured that the necessity for a divine intervention, and. of course, 
the evidence of it would have been more manifest, had the distinc- 
tion between the laws of matter and its collocations been more 
formally announced, or more fully proceeded on by the writera on 
natural theism. And yet it is a distinction that must have been 

present to the mind of our great Newton, who expressly affirms that 
22 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 23 

a mechanism of wonderful structure could not arise by the mere 
laws of nature. In his third printed letter to Bentley, he says, that 
" the growth of new systems out of old ones, without the mediation 
of a divine power, seems to me apparently absurd ;" and that " the 
system of nature was set in order in the beginning, with respect to 
size, figure, proportions, and properties, by the counsels of God's 
own intelligence." In the last extracts, by his admission of the pro- 
perties along with the dispositions of matter, he somewhat confounds 
or disguises again the important distinction which, at times, he had 
clearly in his view.* 

16. But one precious fruit of the recent geological discoveries 
may be gathered from the testimony which they afford to the de- 
struction of so many terrestrial economies now gone by, and the 
substitution of the existing one in their place. If there be truth at all 
in the speculations of this science, there is nothing which appears to 
have been more conclusively established by them, than a definite 
origin or commencement for the present animal and vegetable races. 
Now we know what it is which upholds the whole of the physiolo- 
gical system that is now before our eyes, — even the successive deri- 
vation of each individual member from a parent of its own likeness; 
but we see no force in nature, and no complication of forces which 
can tell us what it was that originated the system. It is at this 
passage in the history of nature, where we meet with such pregnant 
evidence for the interposition of a designing cause, — an evidence, it 
will be seen, of prodigious density and force, when we compute the 
immense number and variety of those aptitudes, whether of form 
or magnitude or relative position, which enter into the completion 
of an organic structure. It is in the numerical superiority of the 
distinct collocations to the distinct laws of matter, that the superior 
evidence of the former lies. We do not deny that there is argument 
for a God in the number of beneficial, while, at the same time, dis- 
tinct and independent laws wherewith matter is endowed. We only 
affirm a million-fold intensity of argument in the indefinitely greater 
number of beneficial, and at the same time distinct and indepen- 
dent number of collocations whereinto matter has been arranged. 
In this respect the human body may be said to present a more close 
and crowded and multifarious inscription of the divinity, than any 



* Towards the end of the third book of Newton's Optics, we have the following 
very distinct testimony upon this subject: "For it became him who created them 
to set them in order. And if he did so, it is unphilosophical to seek for any other 
origin of the world, or to pretend that it might arise out of a chaos by the mere laws 
of nature ; though being once formed, it may continue by those laws for many 
ages." 

This disposition to resolve the collocations into the laws of nature proves, in the 
expressive language of Granville Pens, how strenuously, not " physical science, but 
only some of its disciples have laboured to exclude the Creator from the details of 
his own creation ; straining every nerve of ingenuity to ascribe them all to second- 
ary causes." 

23 



24 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

single object within the compass of visible nature. It is instinct 
throughout with the evidence of a builder's hand ; and thus the ap- 
propriate men of science who can expound those dispositions of 
matter which constitute the anatomy of its framework, and which 
embrace the physiology of its various processes, are on secure and 
firm vantage ground for an impressive demonstration. 

17. Now there are many respects in which the evidence for a 
God, given forth by the constitution of the human body, differs 
from the evidence given forth by the constitution of the human 
spirit. It is with the latter evidence that we have more peculiarly 
to deal ; but at present we shall only advert to a few of its dis- 
tinct and special characteristics. The subject will at length open 
into greater detail, and developement before us, — yet a brief preli- 
minary exposition may be useful at the outset, should it'only convey 
some notion of the difficulties and particularities of the task which 
has been put into our hands. 

18. A leading distinction between the material and the mental 
fabrications is, the far greater complexity of the former, at least 
greater to all human observation. Into that system of means which 
has been formed for the object of seeing, there enter at least twenty 
separate contingencies, the absence of any one of which would 
either derange the proper function of the eye, or altogether destroy 
it. We have no access to aught like the observation of a mental 
structure, and all of which our consciousness informs us is a succes- 
sion of mental phenomena. Now in these we are sensible of nothing 
but a very simple antecedent followed up, and that generally on the 
instant, by a like simple consequent. ,We have the feeling and still 
more the purpose of benevolence, followed up by complacency. 
We have the feeling or purpose, and still more the execution of ma- 
lignity, or rather the recollection of that execution, followed up by 
remorse. However manifold the apparatus may be which enables 
us to see an external object, — when the sight itself, instead of the 
consequent in a material succession, becomes the antecedent in a 
mental one ; or, in other words, when it passes from a material to a 
purely mental process ; then, as soon, does it pass from the com- 
plex into the simple ; and, accordingly, the sight of distress is fol- 
lowed up, without the intervention of any curiously elaborated me- 
chanism that we are at all conscious of. by an immediate feeling of 
compassion. These examples will, at least, suffice to mark a strong 
distinction between the two inquiries, and to show that the several 
arguments drawn from each must at least bo formed oi very differ- 
ent materials. 

li). There arc two distinct ways in which tho mind can he viewed, 
and whirl) constitute differenl modes of conception, rather than 
diversities <>f substantial and scientific doctrine. The mind may 
either he regarded as :i congeries of differenl faculties; or 
simple and indivisible substance, with the susceptibility vi' pas 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 25 

into different states. By the former mode of viewing it, the 
memorv, and the judgment, and the conscience, and the will, are 
conceived of as so many distinct but co-existent parts of mind, which 
is thus represented to us somewhat in the light of an organic struc- 
ture, having separate members, each for the discharge of its own 
appropriate mental function or exercise. By the latter, which we 
deem also the more felicitous mode of viewing it, these distinct 
mental acts, instead of being referred to distinct parts of the mind, 
are conceived of as distinct acts of the whole mind, — insomuch that 
the whole mind remembers, or the whole mind judges, or the whole 
mind wills, or, in short, the whole mind passes into various intellec- 
tual states or states of emotion, according to the circumstances by 
which at the time it is beset, or to the present nature of its employ- 
ment. We might thus either regard the study of mind as a study in 
contemporaneous nature ; and we should then, in the delineation of 
its various parts, be assigning to it a natural history, — or we might 
regard the study of mind as a study in successive nature ; and we 
should then, in ihe description of its various states, be assigning to 
it a natural philosophy. When such a phrase as the anatomy of the 
human mind is employed by philosophers, we may safely guess that 
the former is the conception which they are inclined to form of it.* 
When such a phrase again as the physiology of the human mind 
is made use of, the latter is the conception by which, in all proba- 
bility, it has been suggested. It is thus that Dr. Thomas Brown 
designates the science of mind as mental physiology. With him, in 
fact, it is altogether a science of sequences, his very analysis being 
the analysis of results, and not of compounds. 

20. Now, in either view of our mental constitution there is the 
same strength of evidence for a God. It matters not for this, whether 
the mind be regarded as consisting of so many useful parts, or as 
endowed with as many useful properties. It is the number, whether 
the one or other, of these — out of which the product is formed- of 
evidence for a designing cause. The only reason why the useful 
dispositions of matter are so greatly more prolific of this evidence 
than the useful laws of matter, is, that the former so greatly out- 
number the latter. Of the twenty independent circumstances which 
enter into beneficial concurrence in the formation of an eye, that 
each of them should be found in a situation of optimism, and none 
of them occupying either an indifferent or a hurtful position — it is 
this which speaks so emphatically against the hypothesis of a random 
distribution, and for the hypothesis of an intelligent order. Yet this 
is but one out of the many like specimens, wherewith the animal 
economy thickens and teems in such marvellous profusion. By the 
doctrine of probabilities, the mathematical evidence, in this question 

• It is under this conception too that writers propose to lay down a map of the 
human faculties. 



26 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

between the two suppositions of intelligence or chance, will be found, 
even on many a single organ of the human framework, to prepon- 
derate vastly more than a million-fold on the side of the former. 
We do not affirm of the human mind that it is so destitute of all 
complication and variety, as to be deficient altogether in this sort of 
evidence. Let there be but six laws or ultimate facts in the mental 
constitution, with the circumstance of each of them being beneficial; 
and this of itself would yield no inconsiderable amount of precise and 
calculable proof, for our mental economy being a formation of con- 
trivance, rather than one that is fortuitous or of blind necessity. It 
will at once be seen, however, why mind, just from its greater sim- 
plicity than matter, should contribute so much less to the support of 
natural theism, of that definite and mathematical evidence which is 
founded on combination. 

21. But, although in the mental department of creation, the argu- 
ment for a God that is gathered out of such materials, is not so strong 
as in the other great department — yet it does furnish a peculiar ar- 
gument of its own, which, though not grounded on mathematical 
data, and not derived from a lengthened and logical process of rea- 
soning, is of a highly effective and practical character notwithstand- 
ing. It has not less in it of the substance, though it may have 
greatly less in it of the semblance of a demonstration, that it consists 
of but one step between the premises and the conclusion. It is 
briefly, but cannot be more clearly and emphatically expressed than 
in the following sentence. — " He that formed the eye, shall he not 
see ? He that planted the ear, shall he not hear ? He that teacheth 
man knowledge, shall he not know?" That the parent cause of 
intelligent beings shall be itself intelligent is an aphorism, which, if 
not demonstrable in the forms of logic, carries in the very an- 
nouncement of it a challenging power over the acquiescence of all 
spirits. It is a thing of instant conviction, as if seen in the light of 
its own evidence, more than a thing of lengthened and laborious 
proof. It may be stigmatized as a mere impression — nevertheless 
the most of intellects go as readily along with it. as they would 
from one contiguous step to another of many a stately argumentation. 
If it cannot be exhibited as the conclusion of a syllogism, it is be- 
cause of its own inherent right to be admitted there as the major 
proposition. To proscribe every such truth, or to disown it from 
being truth, merely because incapable of deduction, would be to cast 
away the first principles of all reasoning. It would banish the au- 
thority of intuition, and so reduce all philosophy and knowledge to 
a state of universal scepticism — for what is the first departure ^{ 
every argument but an intuition, and what but a series o\ intuitions 
arc its successive stepping-stones 1 We should soon involve OUT- 
selves in helpless perplexity and darkness, did we insist on every- 
thing being proved and on nothing being assumed — for valid assump- 
tions are the materials of truth, and the only office of argument is to 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 27 

weave them together into so many pieces of instruction for the bet- 
tering or enlightening of the species. 

22. That blind and unconscious matter cannot, by any of her 
combinations, evolve the phenomena of mind, is a proposition seen 
in its own immediate light, and felt to be true with all the speed and 
certainty of an axiom. It is to such truth, as being of instant and 
almost universal consent, that, more than to any other, we owe the 
existence of a natural theology among men : yet, because of the 
occult mysticism wherewith it is charged, it is well that ours is a 
case of such rich and various argument ; that in her service we can 
build up syllogisms, and expatiate over wide fields of induction, and 
amass stores of evidence, and, on the useful dispositions of matter 
alone, can ground such large computations of probability in favour 
of an intelligent cause or maker for all things, as might silence and 
satisfy the reasoners. 

23. But we forget that the object of the joint compositions which 
enter into this work, is not properly to demonstrate the being but the 
attributes of God, and more especially His power, and wisdom, and 
goodness. We start from that point at which the intuitions and 
proofs of the question have performed their end of convincing man 
that God is; and from this point, we set forth on an inquiry into the 
character which belongs to him. Now this is an inquiry which the 
constitution of the mind, and the adaptation of that constitution to 
the external world, are pre-eminently fitted to illustrate. We hold 
that the material universe affords decisive attestation to the natural 
perfections of the Godhead, but that it leaves the question of his mo- 
ral perfections involved in profoundest mystery. The machinery of 
a serpent's tooth, for the obvious infliction of pain and death upon 
its victims, may speak as distinctly for the power and intelligence of 
its Maker as the machinery of those teeth which, formed and inserted 
for simple mastication, subserve the purposes of a bland and benefi- 
cent economy. An apparatus of suffering and torture might furnish 
as clear an indication of design, though a design of cruelty, as does 
an apparatus for the ministration of enjoyment furnish the indication 
also of design, but a design of benevolence. Did we confine our 
study to the material constitution of things, we should meet with the 
enigma of many perplexing and contradictory appearances. We 
hope to make it manifest, that in the study of the mental constitution, 
this enigma is greatly alleviated, if not wholly done away; and, at 
all events, that within our peculiar province there lie the most full 
and unambiguous demonstrations, which nature hath anywhere 
given to us, both of the benevolence and the righteousness of God. 

24. If, in some respects, the phenomena of mind tell us less deci- 
sively than the phenomena of matter, of the existence of God, they 
tell us far more distinctly and decisively of His attributes. We have 
already said that, from the simplicity of the mental system, we met 
with less there of that evidence for design which is founded on com- 



28 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

bination, or on that right adjustment and adaptation of the numerous 
particulars, which enter into a complex assemblage of things, and- 
which are essential to some desirable fulfilment. It is not, therefore, 
through the medium of this particular evidence — the evidence 
which lies in combination; that the phenomena and processes of 
mind are the best for telling us of the Divine existence. But if other- 
wise, or previously told of this, we hold them to be the best through- 
out all nature for telling us of the Divine character. For if once 
convinced, on distinct grounds, that God is, it matters not how sim- 
ple the antecedents or the consequents of any particular succession 
may be. It is enough that we know what the terms of the succes- 
sion are, or what the effect is wherewith God wills any given thing 
to be followed up. The character of the ordination, and so the cha- 
racter of the ordainer, depends on the terms of the succession; and 
not on the nature of that intervention or agency, whether more or 
less complex, by which it is brought about. And should either 
term of the succession, either the antecedent or consequent, be some 
moral feeling, or characteristic of the mind, then the inference comes 
to be a very distinct and decisive one. That the sight of distress, 
for example, should be followed up by compassion, is an obvious 
provision of benevolence, and not of cruelty, on the part of Him who 
ordained our mental constitution. Again, that a feeling of kindness 
in the heart should be followed up by a feeling of complacency in 
the heart, that in every virtuous affection of the soul there should be 
so much to gladden and harmonize it, that there should always be 
peace within when there is conscious purity or rectitude within; and. 
on the other hand, that malignity and licentiousness, and the sense 
of any moral transgression whatever, should always have the effect 
of discomforting, and sometimes even of agonizing the spirit of man 
— that such should be the actual workmanship and working of our 
nature, speaks most distinctly, we apprehend, for the general 
righteousness of Him who constructed its machinery and established 
its laws. An omnipotent patron of vice would have given another 
make, and a moral system with other and opposite tendencies to the 
creatures whom he had formed. He would have established dif- 
ferent sequences; and, instead of that oil of gladness which now dis- 
tils, as if from a secret spring of satisfaction, upon the upright: and, 
instead of that bitterness and disquietude which are now the obvious 
attendants on every species of delinquency, we should have had the 
reverse phenomena of a reversely constituted species, whose 1 minds 
were in their state of wildest disorder when kindling with the 
resolves of highest excellence ; or were in their best and happiest, 
and most harmonious mood, when brooding over the purpos 
dishonesty, or frenzied with the passions of hatred ami revenge. 
25. In this special track of observation, we have at least the 

moans or data lor constructing a far more satisfactory demonstra- 
tion of the divine attributes, than can possibly he gathered, we think, 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 29 

from the ambiguous phenomena of the external world. In other 
words, it will be found that the mental phenomena speak more dis- 
tinctly and decisively for the character of God than do the material 
phenomena of creation. And it should not be forgotten that what- 
ever serves to indicate the character, serves also to confirm the ex- 
istence of the Divine Being. For this character, whose signatures 
are impressed on Nature, is not an abstraction, but must have resi- 
dence on a concrete and substantive Being, who hath communicated 
a transcript of Himself to the workmanship of His own hands. It 
is thus, that, although in our assigned department there is a greater 
poverty of evidence for a God, in as far as that evidence is grounded 
on a skilful disposition of parts, — yet, in respect of another kind of 
evidence, there is no such poverty ; for, greatly more replete as we 
hold our special department to be with the unequivocal tokens of a 
moral character, we, by that simple but strong ligament of proof 
which connects a character with an existence, can, in the study of 
mind alone, find a firm stepping-stone to the existence of a God. 
Our universe is sometimes termed the mirror of Him who made it 
But the optical reflection, whatever it may be, must be held as indi- 
cating the reality which gave it birth ; and, whether we discern 
there the expression of a reigning benevolence, or a reigning justice, 
these must not be dealt with as the aerial or the fanciful personifica- 
tions of qualities alone, but as the substantial evidences of a just and 
benevolent, and, withal, a living God. 

26. But, in the prosecution of our assigned task, we shall, after 
all, meet with much of that evidence, which lies in the manifold, and, 
withal, happy conjunction of many individual things, by the meeting 
together of which, some distinctly beneficial end is accomplished, 
brought about in that one way and in no other. For it ought fur- 
ther to be recollected, that, simple as the constitution of the human 
mind is, and proportionally unfruitful, therefore, as it may be of that 
argument for a God, which is founded on the right assortment and 
disposition of many parts, or even of many principles ; yet, on study- 
ing the precise terms of the commission which has been put into our 
hands, it will be found that the materials even of this peculiar argu- 
ment lie abundantly within our province. For it is not strictly the 
mental constitution of man which forms the subject of our prescribed 
essay, but the adaptation to that constitution of external nature. We 
have to demonstrate, not so much that the mind is rightly constituted 
in itself, as that the mind is rightly placed in a befitting theatre for 
the exercise of its powers. It is to demonstrate that the world and 
its various objects are suited to the various capacities of this inha- 
bitant — this moral and intelligent creature, of whom we have to 
prove that the things which are around him bear a fit relation to the 
laws or the properties which are within him. There is ample room 
here for the evidence of collocation. Yet there remains this dis- 
tinction between the mental and the corporeal economy of man, that 

3* 



30 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

whereas the evidence is more rich and manifold in the bodily struc- 
ture itself, than even in its complex and numerous adaptations to the 
outer world;* the like evidence, in our peculiar department, is 
meagre, as afforded by the subjective mind, when compared with 
the evidence of its various adjustments and fitnesses to the objective 
universe around it, whether of man's moral constitution to the state 
of human society, or of his intellectual to the various objects of 
physical investigation. 

27. The great object of philosophy is to ascertain the simple or 
ultimate principles, into which all the phenomena of nature may by 
analysis be resolved. But it often happens that in this attempt she 
stops short at a secondary law, which might be demonstrated by fur- 
ther analysis to be itself a complex derivative of the primitive or 
elementary laws. Until this work of analysis be completed, we 
shall often mistake what is compound for what is simple, both in the 
philosophy of mind and the philosophy of matter — being frequently 
exposed to intractable substances or intractable phenomena in both, 
which long withstand every effort that science makes for their de- 
composition. It is thus that the time is not yet come, and may 
never come, when we shall fully understand, what be all the simple 
elements or simple laws of matter ; and what be all the distinct ele- 
mentary laws, or, as they have sometimes been termed, the ultimate 
facts in the constitution of the human mind. But we do not need to 
wait for this communication, ere w T e can trace, in either department, 
the wisdom and beneficence of a Deity — for many are both the ma- 
terial and the mental processes which might be recognised as preg- 
nant with utility, and so, pregnant with evidence for a God, long 
before the processes themselves are analyzed. The truth is, that a 
secondary law, if it do not exhibit any additional proof of design, in 
a distinct useful principle, exhibits that proof in a distinct and use- 
ful disposition of parts — for, generally speaking, a secondary law is 
the result of an operation by some primitive law, in peculiar and 
new circumstances. For example, the law of the tides is a second- 
ary law, resolvable into one more general and elementary — even 
the law of gravitation. But we might imagine a state of things, in 
which the discovery of this connexion would have been impossible, 
— as a sky perpetually mantled with a cloudy envelopement, which, 
while it did not intercept the light either of the sun or moon, still hid 
these bodies from our direct observation. In these circumstances, 
the law of the tides and the law of gravitation, though identical in 
themselves, could not have been identified by us: and sc>. we might 
have ascribed this wholesome agitation of the Sea and o( the atmo- 
sphere to a distinct power or principle in nature — affording the dis- 
tinct indication of both a kind and intelligent Creator. Now this 

•Yet Paley has a mosl interesting chapter on the adaptations of external nature 
to tin- human framework, though the main strength and copiouanesa of his argu- 
ment Jic in the anatomy of the framework itself, 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 31 

inference is not annihilated — it is not even enfeebled by the disco- 
very in question ; for although the good arising from tides in the 
ocean and tides in the air, is not referable to a peculiar law — it is at 
least referable to a peculiar collocation. And this holds of all the 
useful secondary laws in the material world. If they cannot be 
alleged in evidence for the number of beneficial principles in nature 
— they can at least be alleged in evidence for the number of nature's 
beneficial arrangements. If they do not attest the multitude of useful 
properties, they at the least attest the multitude of useful parts in 
nature; and the skill, guided by benevolence which has been put 
forth in the distribution of them. So that long ere the philosophy of 
matter is perfected, or all its phenomena and its secondary laws 
have been resolved into their original and constituent principles — 
may we, in their obvious and immediate utility alone, detect as 
many separate evidences in nature as there are separate facts in 
nature, for a wise and benevolent Deity. 

28. And the same will be found true of the secondary laws in the 
mental world, which, if not as many distinct beneficial principles in 
the constitution of the mind, are the effect of as many distinct and 
beneficial arrangements in the objects or circumstances by which it 
is surrounded. We have not to wait the completion of its still more 
subtle and difficult analysis, ere we come within sight of those varied 
indications of benevolent design which are so abundantly to be met 
with, both in the constitution of the mind itself, and in the adapta- 
tion thereto of external nature. Some there are, for example, who 
contend that the laws of taste are not primitive but secondary; that 
our admiration of beauty in material objects is resolvable into other 
and original emotions, and, more especially, by means of the asso- 
ciating principle, into our admiration of moral excellence. Let the 
justness of this doctrine be admitted ; and its only effect on our 
peculiar argument is, that the benevolence of God in thus multiply- 
ing our enjoyments, instead of being indicated by a distinct law for 
suiting the human mind to the objects which surround it, is indicated 
both by the distribution of these objects and by their investment with 
such qualities as suit them to the previous constitution of the mind — 
that he hath pencilled them with the very colours, or moulded them 
into the very shapes which suggest either the graceful or the noble 
of human character ; that he hath imparted to the violet its hue of 
modesty, and clothed the lily in its robe of purest innocence, and 
given to the trees of the forest their respective attitudes of strength 
or delicacy, and made the whole face of nature one bright reflection 
of those virtues which the mind and character of man had originally 
radiated. If it be not by the implantation of a peculiar law in mind, 
it is at least, by a peculiar disposition of tints and forms in external 
nature, that he hath spread so diversified a loveliness over the pano- 
rama of visible things; and thrown so many walks of enchantment 
around us; and turned the sights and the sounds of rural scenery 



82 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

into the ministers of so much and such exquisite enjoyment; and 
caused the outer world of matter to image forth in such profusion 
those various qualities, which at first had pleased or powerfully 
affected us in the inner world of consciousness and thought. It is 
by the modifying operation of circumstances that a primary is trans- 
muted into a secondary law; and if the blessings which we enjoy 
under it cannot be ascribed to the insertion of a distinct principle in 
the nature of man, they can at least be ascribed to a useful disposi- 
tion of circumstances in the theatre around him. 

29. It is thus that philosophical discovery, which is felt by many 
to enfeeble the argument for a God, when it reduces two or more 
subordinate to simpler and anterior laws, does in fact leave that 
argument as entire as before — for if, by analysis, it diminish the 
number of beneficial properties in matter, it replaces the injury 
which it may be supposed to have done in this way to the cause of 
theism, by presenting us with as great an additional number of bene- 
ficial arrangements in nature. And further, it may not be out of 
place to observe, that there appear to be two distinct ways by which 
an artificer might make manifest the wisdom of his contrivances. 
He may either be conceived of, as forming a substance and endow- 
ing it with the fit properties; or as finding a substance with certain 
given properties, and arranging it into fit dispositions for the accom- 
plishment of some desirable end. Both the former and the latter of 
these we ascribe to the divine artificer — of whom we imagine, that 
He is the Creator as well as the Disposer of all things. It is only 
the latter that we Can ascribe to the human artificer, who creates no 
substance, and ordains no property; but finds the substance with all 
its properties ready made and put into his hands, as the raw material 
out of which he fashions his implements and rears his structures of 
various design and workmanship. Now it is a commonly received, 
and has indeed been raised into a sort of universal maxim, that the 
highest property of wisdom is to achieve the most desirable end, or 
the greatest amount of good, by the fewest possible means, or by the 
simplest machinery. When this test is applied to the laws of nature 
— then we esteem it, as enhancing the manifestation of intelligence, 
that one single law, as gravitation, should, as from a centra] and 
commanding eminence, subordinate to itself a whole host of most 
important phenomena ; or that from one great and parent property, 
so vast a family of beneficial consequences should spring. And 
when the same test is applied to the dispositions, whether nature or 
art — then it enhances the manifestation of wisdom, when some great 
end is brought about with ;i less complex or cumbersome instru- 
mentality, as often takes place in the simplification o\ machines, when, 
by the device of some ingenious ligament or wheel, the apparatus is 
made equally, perhaps more effective, whilst less unwielaiy or less 
intricate than before. Yet there is one way in which, along with 
an exceeding complication in the mechanism, there might be given 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 33 

the impression, of the very highest skill and capacity having been 
put forth on the contrivance of it. It is when, by means of a very 
operose and complex instrumentality, the triumph of art has been 
made all the more conspicuous, by a very marvellous result having 
been obtained out of very unpromising materials. It is true, that, 
in this case too, a still higher impression of skill would be given, if 
the same or a more striking result were arrived at, even after the 
intricacy of the machine had been reduced, by some happy device, 
in virtue of which, certain of its parts or circumvolutions had been 
superseded ; and thus, without injury to the final effect, so much of 
the complication had been dispensed with. Still, however, the sub- 
stance, whether of the machine or the manufacture, may be con- 
ceived so very intractable as to put an absolute limit on any further 
simplification, or as to create an absolute necessity for all the mani- 
fold contrivance which had been expended on it. When this idea 
predominates in the mind — then all the complexity which we may 
behold does not reduce our admiration of the artist, but rather 
deepens the sense that we have, both of the reconditeness of his 
wisdom, and of the wondrous vastness and variety of his resources. 
It is the extreme wideness of the contrast, between the sluggishness 
of matter and the fineness of the results in physiology, which so en- 
hances our veneration for the great Architect of Nature, when we 
behold the exquisite organizations of the animal and vegetable king- 
doms.* The two exhibitions are wholly distinct from each other — 
yet each of them may be perfect in its own way. The first is held 
forth to us, when one law of pervading generality is found to scatter 
a myriad of beneficent consequences in its train. The second is 
held forth, when, by an infinite complexity of means, a countless 
variety of expedients with their multiform combinations, some one 
design, such as the upholding of life in plants or animals is accom- 
plished. Creation presents us in marvellous profusion with speci- 
mens of both these — at once confirming the doctrine, and illustrating 
the significancy of the expression in which Scripture hath conveyed 
it to us, when it tells of the manifold wisdom of God. 

30. But while, on a principle already often recognised, this multi- 
tude of necessary conditions to the accomplishment of a given end, 
enhances the argument for a God, because each separate condition 
reduces the hypothesis of chance to a more violent improbability 
than before ; yet it must not be disguised that there is a certain 
transcendental mystery which it has the effect of aggravating, and 
which it leaves unresolved. We can understand the complex ma- 
chinery and the circuitous processes to which a human artist must 
resort, that he might overcome the else uncomplying obstinacy of 
inert matter, and bend it in subserviency to his special designs. But 

* Dr. Paley would state the problem thus. The laws of matter being- given, so 
to organize it, as that it shall produce or sustain the phenomena, whether of vegeta- 
tion or of life. 



34 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

that the Divine artist who first created the matter and ordained its 
laws, should find the same complication necessary for the accom- 
plishment of his purposes ; that such an elaborate workmanship, for 
example, should be required to establish the functions of sight and 
hearing in the animal economy, is very like the lavish or ostensible 
ingenuity of a Being employed in conquering the difficulty which 
himself had raised. It is true, the one immediate purpose is served 
by it which we have just noticed, — that of presenting, as it were, to 
the eye of inquirers a more manifold inscription of the Divinity. 
But if, instead of being the object of inference, it had pleased God to 
make himself the object of a direct manifestation, then for the mere 
purpose of becoming known to his creatures, this reflex or circuitous 
method of revelation would have been altogether uncalled for. That 
under the actual system of creation, and with its actual proofs, he 
has made his existence most decisively known to us, we most thank- 
fully admit. But when question is made between the actual and the 
conceivable systems of creation which God might have emanated, 
we are forced to confess, that the very circumstances which, in the 
existing order of things, have brightened and enhanced the evidence 
of His being, have also cast a deeper secrecy over what may be 
termed the general policy of His government and ways. And this 
is but one of the many difficulties, which men of unbridled specula- 
tion and unobservant of that sound philosophy that keeps within the 
limits of human observation, will find it abundantly possible to con- 
jure up on the field of natural theism. It does look an impracticable 
enigma that the Omnipotent God, who could have grafted all the 
capacities of thought and feeling on an elementary atom, should 
have deemed fit to incorporate the human soul in the midst of so 
curious and complicated a framework. For what a variegated 
structure is man's animal economy. What an apparatus of vessels 
and bones and ligaments. What a complex mechanism. What an 
elaborate chemistry. What a multitude of parts in the anatomy, 
and of processes in the physiology of this marvellous system. "What 
a medley, we had almost said, what a package of contents. What 
an unwearied play of secretions and circulations and other changes 
incessant and innumerable. In short, what a laborious complica- 
tion ; and all to uphold a living principle, which, one might think, 
could by a simple fiat of omnipotence, have sprung forth at once 
from the great source and centre of the spiritual system, and mingled 
with the world of spirits — just as each now particle o( light is sent 
forth by the emanation of a sunbeam, to play and glisten among the 
fields of radiance. 

31. But to recall ourselves from this digression among the possibi- 
lities of what might have been, to the realities of the mental system, 
such as it actually is. Ere we bring the very general observations oi' 
this chapter to a close, we would briefly notice an analogy between 
the realities of the mental and those of the corporeal system. The 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 35 

inquirers into the latter have found it of substantial benefit to their 
science, to have mixed up with the prosecution of it a reference to 
final causes. Their reasoning on the likely uses of a part in ana- 
tomy, has, in some instances, suggested or served as a guide to spe- 
culations, which have been at length verified by a discovery. We 
believe, in like manner, that reasoning on the likely or obvious uses 
of a principle in the constitution of the human mind, might lead, if 
not to the discovery, at least to the confirmation of important truth 
— not perhaps in the science itself, but in certain of the cognate 
sciences which stand in no very distant relation to it. For example, 
we think it should rectify certain errors which have been committed 
both in jurisprudence and political economy, if it can be demon- 
strated that some of the undoubted laws of human nature are tra- 
versed by them ; and so, that violence is thereby done to the obvious 
designs of the Author of Nature. We shall not hold it out of place, 
though we notice one or two of these instances, by which it might 
be seen that the mental philosophy, when studied in connexion with 
the palpable views of Him by whom all its principles and processes 
were ordained, is fitted to enlighten the practice of legislation, and 
more especially to determine the wisdom of certain arrangements 
which have for their object the economic well-being of society. 

32. We feel the arduousness of our peculiar task, and the feeling 
is not at all alleviated by our sense of its surpassing dignity. The 
superiority of mind to matter has often been the theme of eloquence 
to moralists. For what were all the wonders of the latter and all its 
glories, without a spectator mind that could intelligently view and 
that could tastefully admire them? Let every eye be irrevocably 
closed, and this were equivalent to the entire annihilation in nature 
of the element of light; and in like manner, if the light of all con- 
sciousness were put out in the world of mind, the world of matter, 
though as rich in beauty, and in the means of benevolence as before, 
were thereby reduced to a virtual nonentity. In these circum- 
stances, the lighting up again of even but one mind would restore 
its being, or at least its significancy to that system of materialism, 
which, untouched itself, had just been desolated of all those beings 
in whom it could kindle reflection, or to whom it could minister the 
sense of enjoyment. It were tantamount to the second creation of 
it, — or, in other words, one living intelligent spirit is of higher reckon- 
ing and mightier import than a dead universe. 



36 



<£> PART I. 

ON THE ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE MORAL 
CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 




CHAPTER L 

On the Supremacy of Conscience. 

1. An abstract question in morals is distinct from a question re- 
specting the constitution of man's moral nature ; and the former 
ought no more to be confounded with the latter, than the truths of 
geometry with the faculties of the reasoning mind which compre- 
hends them. The virtuousness of justice was a stable doctrine in 
ethical science, anterior to the existence of the species ; and would 
remain so, though the species were destroyed — just as much as the 
properties of a triangle are the enduring stabilities of mathematical 
science ; and that, though no matter had been created to exemplify 
the positions or the figures of geometry. The objective nature of 
virtue is one thing. The subjective nature of the human mind, by 
which virtue is felt and recognised, is another. It is not from the 
former, any more than from the eternal truths of geometry, that 
we cam demonstrate the existence or attributes of God — but from 
the latter, as belonging to the facts of a creation emanating from 
His will, and therefore bearing upon it the stamp of His character. 
The nature and constitution of virtue form a distinct subject o\ in- 
quiry from the nature and constitution of the human mind. Virtue 
is not a creation of the Divine will, but has had everlasting resi- 
dence in the nature of the Godhead. The mind of man is a crea- 
tion; and therefore indicates, by its characteristics, the character oi~ 
Him, to the fiat and the forthgoing of whose will it owes its exist- 
ence. We must frequently, in the course of this discussion, advert 
to the principles of ethics ; but it is not on the system of ethical 
doctrine that our argument properly is founded. It is on the phe- 
nomena and the laws of actual human nature, which itself, one o\ 
the great facts of creation, may be regarded like all its facts, as 



ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 37 

bearing on it the impress of that mind which gave birth to crea- 
tion. 

2. But further. It is not only not with the system of ethical doc- 
trine — it is not even with the full system of the philosophy of our 
nature that we have properly to do. On this last there is still a 
number of unsettled questions ; but our peculiar argument does not 
need to wait for the conclusive determination of them. For exam- 
ple, there is many a controversy among philosophers respecting the 
primary and secondary laws of the human constitution. Now, if it 
be an obviously beneficial law, it carries evidence for a God, in the 
mere existence and operation of it, independently of the rank which 
it holds, or of the relation in which it stands to the other principles 
of our internal mechanism. It is thus that there may, at one and 
the same time, be grounded on the law in question a clear geologi- 
cal inference ; and yet there may be associated with it an obscure 
philosophical speculation. It is well that we separate these two ; 
and, more especially, that the decisive attestation given by any part 
or phenomenon of our nature to the Divine goodness, shall not be 
involved in the mist and metaphysical perplexity of other reasonings, 
the object of which is altogether distinct and separate from our own. 
The facts of the human constitution, apart altogether from the phi- 
losophy of their causation, demonstrate the wisdom and benevolence 
of Him who framed it : and while it is our part to follow the light of 
this philosophy, as far as the light and the guidance of it are sure, we 
are not, in those cases, when the final cause is obvious as day, though 
the proximate efficient cause should be hidden in deepest mystery, — 
we are not, on this account, to confound darkness with light, or light 
with darkness. 

3. By attending throughout to this observation, we shall be 
saved from a thousand irrelevancies as well as obscurities of argu- 
ment ; and it is an observation peculiarly applicable, in announcing 
that great fact or phenomenon of mind, which, for many reasons, 
should hold a foremost place in our demonstration — we mean the 
felt supremacy of conscience. Philosophers there are, who have at- 
tempted to resolve this fact into ulterior or ultimate ones in the 
mental constitution ; and who have denied to the faculty a place 
among its original and uncompounded principles. Sir James Mack- 
intosh tells us of the generation of human conscience ; and, not 
merely states, but endeavours to explain the phenomenon of its felt 
supremacy within us. Dr. Adam Smith also assigns a pedigree to 
our moral judgments ; but, with all his peculiar notions respecting 
the origin of the awards of conscience, he never once disputes their 
authority ; or, that, by the general consent of mankind, this authority 
is, in sentiment and opinion at least, conceded to them.* It is sorne- 



* "Upon whatever," observes Dr. Adam Smith, "we suppose our moral facul- 
ties to be founded, whether upon a certain modification of reason, upon an original 



38 ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 

what like an antiquarian controversy respecting the first formation 
and subsequent historical changes of some certain court of govern- 
ment, the rightful authority of whose decisions and acts is, at the 
same time, fully recognised. And so, philosophers have disputed 
regarding the court of conscience — of what materials it is con- 
structed, and by what line of genealogy from the anterior principles 
of our nature it has sprung. Yet most of these have admitted the 
proper right of sovereignty which belongs to it ; its legitimate place 
as the master and the arbiter over all the appetites and desires and 
practical forces of human nature. Or, if any have dared the singu- 
larity of denying this, they do so in opposition to the general sense 
and general language of mankind, whose very modes of speech 
compel them to affirm that the biddings of conscience are of para- 
mount authority — its peculiar office being to tell what all men should, 
or all men ought to do. 

4. The proposition, however, which w r e are now urging, is not 
that the obligations of virtue are binding, but that man has a con- 
science which tells him that they are so — not that justice and truth 
and humanity are the dogmata of the abstract moral system, but 
that they are the dictates of man's moral nature — not that in them- 
selves they are the constituent parts of moral rectitude, but that there 
is a voice within every heart which thus pronounces on them. It is 
with the constitution of morality, viewed objectively, as a system 
or theory of doctrine, that we have properly to do: but with the 
constitution of man's spirit, viewed as the subject of certain phe- 
nomena and laws — and, more particularly, with a great psycholo- 
gical fact in human nature, namely, the homage rendered by it to 
the supremacy of conscience. In a word, it is not of a category, 
but of a creation that we are speaking. The one can tell us nothing 
of the divine character, while the other might afford most distinct 
and decisive indications of it. We could found no demonstration 
whatever of the divine purposes, on a mere ethical, any more than 
we could, on a logical or mathematical category. But it is very 
different with an actual creation, whether in mind or in matter — a 
mechanism of obvious contrivance and whose workings and tenden- 
cies, therefore, must be referred to the design, and so to the dispo- 
sition or character of that Being, whose spirit hath devised and 
whose fingers have framed it. 

5. And neither do we urge the proposition that conscience has 



instinct called a moral sense, or upon some other principle of our nature, it cannot 
ho doubted that they were given us for the direction of our conduct in this life. 
They carry along with them the most evident badges of this authority, which 
denote that they were set up within us to be the supreme arbiters of all our actions, 
to superintend all our senses, passions and appetites, and to judge how far each of 
them was either to be indulged or restrained. It is the peculiar oflice (>f these 
facilities to judge, to bestow censure or applause upon all the other principles of 
our nature." — Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part hi. chap. v. 



ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. J9 

in every instance, the actual direction of human affairs, for this 
were in the face of all experience. It is not that every man obeys 
her dictates, but that every man feels he ought to obey them. 
These dictates are often in life and practice disregarded: so that 
conscience is not the sovereign de facto. Still there is a voice with- 
in the hearts of all which asserts that conscience is the sovereign 
de jure; that to her belongs the command rightfully, even though 
she do not possess it actually. In a season of national anarchy, the 
actual power and the legitimate authority are often disjoined from 
each other. The lawful monarch may be dethroned, and so lose 
the might ; while he continues to possess — nay, while he may be ac- 
knowledged throughout his kingdom to possess the right of sove- 
reignty. The distinction still- is made, even under this reign of vio- 
lence, between the usurper and the lawful sovereign; and there is a 
similar distinction among the powers and the principles of the 
human constitution, when an insurrection takes place of the inferior 
against the superior ; and conscience, after being dethroned from 
her place of mastery and control, is still felt to be the superior, or 
rather supreme faculty of our nature notwithstanding. She may 
have fallen from her dominion, yet still wear the badges of a fallen 
sovereign, having the acknowledged right of authority, though the 
power of enforcement has been wrested away from her. She may 
be outraged in all her prerogatives by the lawless appetites of our 
nature, — but not without the accompanying sense within of an out- 
rage and a wrong having been inflicted, and a reclaiming voice from 
thence which causes itself to be heard and which remonstrates 
against it. The insurgent and inferior principles of our constitu- 
tion may, in the uproar of their w r ild mutiny, lift a louder and more 
effective voice than the small still voice of conscience. They have 
the might but not the right. Conscience, on the other hand, is felt 
to have the right though not the might — the legislative office being 
that which properly belongs to her, though the executive power 
should be wanting to enforce her enactments. It is not the reign- 
ing but the rightful authority of conscience, that we, under the name 
of her supremacy, contend for; or, rather the fact that, by the con- 
sent of all our higher principles and feelings, this rightful authority 
is reputed to be hers ; and, by the general concurrence of mankind 
awarded to her. 

6. And here it is of capital importance to distinguish between an 
original and proper tendency, and a subsequent aberration. This 
has been well illustrated by the regulator of a watch, whose office 
and primary design, and that obviously announced by the relation in 
which it stands to the other parts of the machinery, is to control the 
velocity of its movements. And we should still perceive this to have 
been its destination, even though, by accident or decay, it had lost the 
power of command which at the first belonged to it. We should 
not misunderstand the purpose of its maker, although, in virtue of 



40 ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 

some deterioration or derangement which the machinery had under- 
gone, that purpose were now frustrated. And we could discern the 
purpose in the very make and constitution of the mechanism. We 
might even see it to be an irregular watch ; and yet this needs not 
prevent us from seeing, that, at its original fabrication, it was made 
for the purpose of moving regularly. The mere existence and po- 
sition of the regulator might suffice to indicate this, — although it had 
become powerless, either from the wearing of the parts, or from 
some extrinsic disturbance to which the instrument had been ex- 
posed. The regulator, in this instance, may be said to have the 
right, though not the power of command, over the movements of the 
timepiece ; yet the loss of the power has not obliterated the vestiges 
of the right ; so that, by the inspection of the machinery alone, we 
both learn the injury which has been done to it, and the condition in 
which it originally came from the hand of its maker — a condition of 
actual as well as rightful supremacy, on the part of the regulator, 
over all its movements. And a similar discovery may be made, by 
examination of the various parts and principles which make up the 
moral system of man : for we see various parts and principles there. 
We see Ambition, having power for its object, and without the 
attainment of which it is not satisfied ; and Avarice, having wealth 
for its object, without the attainment of which it is not satisfied ; and 
Benevolence, having for its object the good of others, without the 
attainment of which it is not satisfied; and the love of Reputation, 
having for its object their applause, without which it is not satisfied ; 
and lastly, to proceed no further in the enumeration, Conscience, 
which surveys and superintends the whole man, whose distinct and 
appropriate object it is to have the entire control both of his inward 
desires and outward doings, and without the attainment of this it is 
thwarted from its proper aim, and remains unsatisfied. Each appe- 
tite, or affection of our nature, has its own distinct object; but this 
last is the object of Conscience, which may be termed the moral 
affection. The place which it occupies, or rather which it is felt 
that it should occupy, and which naturally belongs to it, is that of a 
governor, claiming the superiority, and taking to itself the direction 
over all the other powers and passions of humanity. If this superi- 
ority be denied to it, there is a felt violence done to the whole 
economy of man. The sentiment is, that the thing is not as it 
should be: and even after conscience is forced, in virtue of some 
subsequent derangement, from this station of rightful ascendency, 
we can still distinguish between what is the primitive design or 
tendency, and what is the posterior aberration. We can perceive, 
in the case of a deranged or distempered watch, that the mechanism 
is out of order; but even then, on the ban" examination of its work- 
manship, and more especially from the place and bearing o\' its 
regulator, can we pronounce that it was made for moving regularly. 
And in like manner, on the bare Inspection o( our mental economy 



ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 41 

alone, and more particularly from the place which conscience has 
there, can we, even in the case of the man who refuses to obey its 
dictates, affirm that he was made for walking conscientiously. 

7. The distinction which we now labour to establish between 
conscience, and the other principles of our nature, does not respect 
the actual force or prevalence which may, or may not, severally 
belong to them. It respects the universal judgment which, by the 
very constitution of our nature, is passed on the question of Tightness 
— on the question, which of all these should have the prevalence, 
whenever there happens to be a contest between them. All which 
we affirm is, that if conscience prevail over the other principles, 
then every man is led, by the very make and mechanism of his 
internal economy, to feel that this is as it ought to be ; or, if these 
others prevail over conscience, that this is not as it ought to be. 
One, it is generally felt, may be too ambitious, or too much set on 
wealth and fame, or too resentful of injury, or even too facile in his 
benevolence, when carried to the length of being injudicious and 
hurtful; but no one is ever felt, if he have sound and enlightened 
views of morality, to be too conscientious. When we affirm this of 
conscience, we but concur in the homage rendered to it by nil men, 
as being the rightful, if not the actual superior, among all the feelings 
and faculties of our nature. It is a truth, perhaps, too simple for 
being reasoned; but this is because, like many of the most impor- 
tant and undoubted certainties of human belief, it is a truth of instant 
recognition. When stating the supremacy of conscience, in the 
sense that we have explained it, we but state what all men feel ; 
and our only argument, in proof of the assertion, is — our only argu- 
ment can be, an appeal to the experience of all men. 

8. Bishop Butler has often been spoken of as the first discoverer 
of this great principle in our nature; though, perhaps, no man can 
properly be said to discover what all men are conscious of. But 
certain it is, that he is the first who hath made it the subject of a full 
and reflex cognisance. It forms the argument of his three first ser- 
mons, in a volume which may safely be pronounced, the most 
precious repository of sound ethical principles extant in any lan- 
guage. The authority of conscience, says Dugald Stewart, "al- 
though beautifully described by many of the ancient moralists, was 
not sufficiently attended to by modern writers, as a fundamental 
principle in the science of ethics, till the time of Dr. Butler." It 
belongs to the very essence of the principle, that we clearly distin- 
guish, between what we find to be the actual force of conscience, 
and what we feel to be its rightful authority. These two may exist 
in a state of separation from each other just as in a Civil Govern- 
ment, the reigning power may, in seasons of anarchy, be dissevered 
from that supreme court or magistrate to whom it rightfully belongs- 
The mechanism of a political fabric is not adequately or fully 
described by the mere enumeration of its parts. There must also 

4* 



42 Otf THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 

enter into the description, the relation which the parts bear to each 
other ; and more especially, the paramount relation of rightful as- 
cendency and direction, which that part, in which the functions of 
Government are vested, bears to the whole. Neither is the mecha- 
nism of man's personal constitution fully or adequately described, by 
merely telling us in succession the several parts of which it is com- 
posed—as the passions, and the appetites, and the affections, and the 
moral sense, and the intellectual capacities, which make up this 
complex and variously gifted creature. The particulars of his 
mental system must not only be stated, each in their individuality ; 
but the bearing or connexion which each has with the rest — else it 
is not described as a system at all. In making out this description, 
we should not only not overlook the individual faculty of conscience, 
but we must not overlook its relative place among the other feelings 
and faculties of our nature. That place is the place of command. 
What conscience lays claim to is the mastery or regulation over the 
whole man. Each desire of our nature rests or terminates in its 
own appropriate object, as the love of fame in applause, or hunger 
in food, or revenge in the infliction of pain upon its object, or affec- 
tion for another in the happiness and company of the beloved indi- 
vidual. But the object of the moral sense is to arbitrate and direct 
among all these propensities. It claims the station and the preroga- 
tive of a mistress over them, its peculiar office is that of superinten- 
dence, and there is a certain feeling of violence or disorder, when 
the mandates which it issues in this capacity, are not carried into 
effect. Every affection in our nature is appeased by the object that 
is suited to it. The object of conscience is the subordination of the 
whole to its dictates. Without this it remains unappeased, and as 
if bereft of its rights. It is not a single faculty, taking its own sepa- 
rate and unconnected place among the other feelings and faculties 
which belong to us. Its proper place is that of a guide or a gover- 
nor. It is the ruling power in our nature ; and its proper, its legiti- 
mate business, is to prescribe that man shall he as he ought, and do 
as he ought. But instead of expatiating any further at present in 
language of our own, let us here admit a few brief sentences from 
Butler himself, that great and invaluable expounder both ol the 
human constitution, and of moral science. "That principle by 
which we survey, and either approve or disapprove our own heart, 
temper, and actions, is not only to be considered as what in its turn 
is to have some influence, which may be said of every passion, o( 
the basest appetites : but likewise as being superior; as from its very 
nature manifestly claiming superiority over all others: insomuch 
that you cannot form a notion of this faculty conscience, without 
taking in judgment, direction and superintendence. This is a con- 
stituent pari of the idea, thai is of the faculty itself: and to preside 
and govern, from the very economy and constitution of man, belongs 
to it. Had it strength, as it has right: had it power, as it lias 



ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 43 

manifest authority ; it would absolutely govern the world." " This 
faculty was placed within us to be our proper governor ; to direct 
and regulate all under principles, passions, and motives of action. 
This is its right and office. Thus sacred is its authority. And how 
often soever men violate and rebelliously refuse to submit to it, for 
supposed interest which they cannot otherwise obtain, or for the 
sake of passion which they cannot otherwise gratify ; this makes no 
alteration as to the natural right and office of conscience. 

9. Now it is in these phenomena of Conscience that Nature offers 
to us, far her strongest argument, for the moral character of God. 
Had he been an unrighteous Being himself, would He have given to 
this the obviously superior faculty in man, so distinct and authorita- 
tive a voice on the side of righteousness ? Would He have so con- 
structed the creatures of our species, as to have planted in every 
breast a reclaiming witness against himself? Would he have thus 
inscribed on the tablet of every heart the sentence of his own con- 
demnation ; and is not this just as unlikely, as that He should have 
inscribed it in written characters on the forehead of each individual? 
Would He so have fashioned the workmanship of His own hands; 
or, if a God of cruelty, injustice, and falsehood, would He have 
placed in the station of master and judge that faculty which, felt to 
be the highest in our nature, would prompt a generous and high- 
minded revolt of all our sentiments against the Being who formed 
us? From a God possessed of such characteristics, we should surely 
have expected a differently-moulded humanity; or, in other words, 
from the actual constitution of man, from the testimonies on the side 
of all righteousness, given by the vicegerent within the heart, do we 
infer the righteousness of the Sovereign who placed it there. He 
would never have established a conscience in man, and invested it 
with the authority of a monitor, and given to it those legislative and 
judicial functions which it obviously possesses ; and then so framed 
it, that all its decisions should be on the side of that virtue which he 
himself disowned, and condemnatory of that vice which he himself 
exemplified. This is an evidence for the righteousness of God, 
which keeps its ground, amid all the disorders and aberrations to 
which humanity is liable ; and can no more, indeed, be deafened or 
overborne by these than is the rightful authority of public opinion, 
by the occasional outbreakings of iniquity and violence which take 
place in society. This public opinion may, in those seasons of 
misrule when might prevails over right, be deforced from the prac- 
tical ascendency which it ought to have ; but the very sentiment that 
it so ought, is our reason for believing the world to have been ori- 
ginally formed, in order that virtue might have the rule over it. In 
like manner, when, in the bosom of every individual man, we can 
discern a conscience, placed there with the obvious design of being 
a guide and a commander, it were difficult not to believe, that, 
whatever the partial outrages may be which the cause of virtue hag 



44 OiV THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 

to sustain, it has the public mind of the universe in its favour; and 
that therefore He, who is the Maker and the Ruler of such a uni- 
verse, is a God of righteousness. Amid all the subsequent obscura- 
tions and errors, the original design, both of a deranged watch and 
of a deranged human nature, is alike manifest ; first, of the maker of 
the watch, that its motions should harmonize with time ; second, of 
the maker of man, that his movements should harmonize with truth 
and righteousness. We can, in most cases, discern between an 
aberration and an original law ; between a direct or primitive ten- 
dency and the effect of a disturbing force, by which that tendency is 
thwarted and overborne. And so of the constitution of man. It 
may be now a loosened and disproportioned thing, yet we can trace 
the original structure — even as from the fragments of a ruin, we can 
obtain the perfect model of a building from its capital to its base. 
It is thus that, however prostrate conscience may have fallen, we 
can still discern its place of native and original pre-eminence, as 
being at once the legislator and the judge in the moral system, 
though the executive forces of the system have made insurrection 
against it, and thrown the whole into anarchy. There is a depth of 
mystery in every thing connected with the existence or the origin of 
evil in creation; yet, even in the fiercest uproar of our stormy pas- 
sions, Conscience, though in her softest whispers, gives to the supre- 
macy of rectitude the voice of an undying testimony ; and her light 
still shining in a dark place, her unquelled accents still heard in the 
loudest outcry of Nature's rebellious appetites, form the strongest 
argument within reach of the human faculties, that, in spite of all 
partial or temporary derangements, Supreme Power and Supreme 
Goodness are at one. It is true that rebellious man hath, with daring 
footstep, trampled on the lessons of Conscience ; but why, in spite of 
man's perversity, is conscience, on the other hand, able to lift a voice 
so piercing and so powerful, by which to remonstrate against the 
wrong, and to reclaim the honours that are due to her ? How comes 
it that, in the mutiny and uproar of the inferior faculties, that faculty 
in man, which wears the stamp and impress of the highest, should 
remain on the side of truth and holiness? Would humanity have thus 
been moulded by a false and evil spirit ; or would he have com- 
mitted such impolicy against himself, as to insert in each member of 
our species a principle which would make him feel the greatest 
complacency in his own rectitude, when he feels the most high- 
minded revolt of indignation and dislike against the Being who gave 
him birth? It is not so much that Conscience takes a part among 
the other faculties of our nature ; but thai Conscience takes among 
them the part of a governor, and thai man, it' he i\o not obey her 
suggestions, still, in despite of himself, acknowledges her rights. It 
is a mighty argumenl tor the virtue of the governor above, that all 
the laws and injunctions of the governor below are on the side ol 
virtue. It seems as if He had lefl this representative, or remaining 



ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 45 

witness, for Himself, in a world that had cast off its allegiance; and 
that, from the voice of the judge within the breast, we may learn the 
will and the character of Him who hath invested with such authority 
his dictates. It is this which speaks as much more demonstratively 
for the presidency of a righteous God in human affairs, than for that 
of impure or unrighteous demons, as did the rod of Aaron, when it 
swallowed the rods of the enchanters and magicians in Egypt. In 
the wildest anarchy of man's insurgent appetites and sins, there is 
still a reclaiming voice — a voice which, even when in practice disre- 
garded, it is impossible not to own ; and to which, at the very 
moment that we refuse our obedience, we find that we cannot refuse 
the homage of what ourselves do feel and acknowledge to be the 
best, the highest principles of our nature. 

10. However difficult from the very simplicity of the subject it 
may be, to state or to reason the argument for a God, which is 
founded on the supremacy of conscience — still, historically and ex- 
perimentally, it will be found, that it is of more force than all other 
arguments put together, for originating and upholding the natural 
theism which there is in the world. The theology of conscience is 
not only of wider diffusion, but of far more practical influence than 
the theology of academic demonstration. The ratiocination by 
which this theology is established, is not the less firm or the less im- 
pressive, that, instead of a lengthened process, there is but one step 
between the premises and the conclusion — or, that the felt presence 
of a judge within the breast, powerfully and immediately suggests 
the notion of a Supreme Judge and Sovereign, who placed it there. 
Upon this question, the mind does not stop short at mere abstrac- 
tion ; but, passing at once from the abstract to the concrete, from 
the law of the heart, it makes the rapid inference of a lawgiver. It 
is the very rapidity of this inference which makes it appear like 
intuition ; and which has given birth to the mystic theology of innate 
ideas. Yet the theology of conscience disclaims such mysticism, 
built, as it is, on a foundation of sure and sound reasoning ; for the 
strength of an argumentation in no wise depends upon the length of 
it. The sense of a governing principle within, begets in all men the 
sentiment of a living governor without and above them, and it does 
so with all the speed of an instantaneous feeling ; yet it is not an im- 
pression, it is an inference notwithstanding — and as much so as any 
inference from that which is seen, to that which is unseen. There 
is, in the first instance, cognisance taken of a fact — if not by the 
outward eye, yet as good, by the eye of consciousness which has 
been termed the faculty of internal observation. And the conse- 
quent belief of a God, instead of being an instinctive sense of the Di- 
vinity, is the fruit of an inference grounded on that fact. There is 
instant, transition made, from the sense of a Monitor within to the 
faith of a living Sovereign above ; and this argument, described by 
all, but with such speed as almost to warrant the expression of its 



46 ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 

being felt by all, may be regarded, notwithstanding the force and 
fertility of other considerations, as the great prop of natural religion 
among men. 

11. And we mistake, if we think it was ever otherwise, even in 
the ages of darkest and most licentious paganism. This theology of 
conscience has often been greatly obscured, but never, in any coun- 
try or at any period in the history of the world, has it been wholly 
obliterated. We behold the vestiges of it in the simple theology of 
the desert ; and, perhaps, more distinctly there, than in the complex 
superstitions of an artificial and civilized heathenism. In confirma- 
tion of this, we might quote the invocations to the Great Spirit from 
the wilds of North America. But, indeed, in every quarter of the 
globe, where missionaries have held converse with savages, even 
with the rudest of nature's children — when speaking on the topics 
of sin and judgment, they did not speak to them in vocables un- 
known. And as this sense of a universal law and a Supreme Law- 
giver never waned into total extinction among the tribes of ferocious 
and untamed wanderers — so neither was it altogether stifled by the 
refined and intricate polytheism of more enlightened nations. The 
whole of classic authorship teems with allusions to a Supreme Go- 
vernor and Judge : And when the guilty Emperors of Rome were 
tempest-driven by remorse and fear, it was not that they trembled 
before a spectre of their own imagination. When terror mixed, 
which it often did, with the rage and cruelty of Nero, it was the 
theology of conscience which haunted him. It w r as not the sugges- 
tion of a capricious fancy which gave him the disturbance — but a 
voice issuing from the deep recesses of a moral nature, as stable and 
uniform throughout the species as is the material structure of hu- 
manity ; and in the lineaments of which we may read that there is a 
moral regimen among men, and therefore a moral Governor who 
hath instituted, and who presides over it. Therefore it was that 
these imperial despots, the worst and haughtiest of recorded 1110- 
narchs, stood aghast at the spectacle of their own worthlessness. 
It is true, there is a wretchedness which naturally and essentially 
belongs to a state of great moral unhingement ; and this may ac- 
count for their discomforts, but it will not account for their fears. 
They may, because of this, have felt the torments of a present 
misery. But whence their fears of a coming vengeance 1 They 
would not have trembled at nature's law, apart from the thought of 
nature's lawgiver. The imagination of an unsanctioned law would 
no more have given disquietude, than the imagination of a vacant 
throne. But the law, to their guilty apprehensions, bespoke a judge. 
The throne of heaven, to their troubled eye, was tilled by a living 
monarch. Righteousness, it was felt, would not have been si> en- 
throned in the moral system of man, had it not been previously en- 
throned in the system of the universe; nor would it have held such 
a place and pre-eminence in the judgment of all spirits, had not the 



ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 47 

father of spirits been its friend and ultimate avenger. This is not a 
local or geographical notion. It is a universal feeling — to be found 
wherever men are to be found, because interwoven with the constitu- 
tion of humanity. It is not, therefore, the peculiarity of one creed, 
or of one country. It circulates at large throughout the family of 
man. We can trace it in the theology of savage life; nor is it 
wholly overborne by the artificial theology of a more complex and 
idolatrous paganism. Neither crime nor civilization can extinguish 
it; and, whether in the " conscientia scelerum" of the fierce and 
frenzied Cataline, or in the tranquil contemplative musings of So- 
crates and Cicero, we find the impression of at once a righteous and 
a reigning Sovereign. 

12. And it confirms still more our idea of a government — that 
conscience not only gives forth her mandates with the tone and autho- 
rity of a Superior ; but, as if on purpose to enforce their observance, 
thus follows them up with an obvious discipline of rewards and 
punishments. It is enough but to mention, on the one hand, that 
felt complacency which is distilled, like some precious elixir, upon 
the heart by the recollection of virtuous deeds and virtuous sacri- 
fices ; and, on the other hand, those inflictions of remorse, which 
are attendant upon wickedness, and wherewith, as if by the whip of 
a secret tormentor, the heart of every conscious sinner is agonized. 
We discern in these the natural sanctions of morality, and the moral 
character of Him who hath ordained them. We cannot otherwise 
explain the peace and triumphant satisfaction which spring from the 
consciousness of well doing — nor can we otherwise explain the de- 
gradation as well as bitter distress, which a sense of demerit brings 
along with it. Our only adequate interpretation of these phenomena 
is, that they are the present remunerations or the present chastise- 
ments of a God who loveth righteousness, and who hateth iniquity. 
Nor do we view them as the conclusive results of virtue and vice, 
but rather as the tokens and the precursors either of a brighter re- 
ward or of a heavier vengeance, that are coming. It is thus that 
the delight of self-approbation, instead of standing alone, brings hope 
in its train ; and remorse, instead of standing alone, brings terror in 
its train. The expectations of the future are blended with these joys 
and sufferings of the present; and all serve still more to stamp an 
impression, of which traces are to be found in every quarter of the 
earth — that we live under a retributive economy, and that the God 
w r ho reigns over it takes a moral and judicial cognisance of the 
creatures w T hom He hath formed. 

13. What then are the specific injunctions of conscience? for on 
this question essentially depends every argument that we can derive 
from this power or property of our nature, for the moral character 
of God. If, on the one hand, the lessons given forth by a faculty, 
which so manifestly claims to be the pre-eminent and ruling faculty 
of our nature, be those of deceit and licentiousness and cruelty — 



48 ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 

then, from the character of such a law, should we infer the charac- 
ter of the lawgiver; and so feel the conclusion to be inevitable, that 
we are under the government of a malignant and unrighteous God, 
at once the patron of vice and the persecutor of virtue in the world. 
If on the other hand, temperance, and chastity, and kindness, and 
integrity, and truth, be the mandates which generally, if not invari- 
ably proceed from her — then, on the same principles of judgment, 
should we reckon that He who is the author of conscience, and who 
gave it the place of supremacy and honour, which it so obviously 
possesses in the moral systetn of man, was himself the friend and 
the exemplar of all those virtues which enter into the composition 
of perfect moral rectitude. In the laws and the lessons of human 
conscience, would we study the character of the Godhead, just as 
we should study the views and dispositions of a monarch, in the in- 
structions given by him to the viceroy of one of his provinces. If, 
on the one hand, virtue be prescribed by the authority of conscience, 
and followed up by her approval, in which very approval there is 
felt an inward satisfaction and serenity of spirit, that of itself forms 
a most delicious reward ; and if, on the other hand, the perpetra- 
tions of wickedness are followed up by the voice of her rebuke, in 
which, identical with remorse, there is a sting of agony and discom- 
fort, amounting to the severest penalty — then, are we as naturally 
disposed to infer of Him who ordained such a mental constitution 
that He is the righteous Governor of men, as, if seated on a visible 
throne in the midst of us, He had made the audible proclamation of 
His law, and by His own immediate hand, had distributed of His 
gifts to the obedient, and inflicted chastisements on the rebellious. 
The law of conscience may be regarded as comprising all those 
virtues which the hand of the Deity hath inscribed on the tablet of 
the human heart, or on the tablet of natural jurisprudence ; and an 
argument for these being the very virtues which characterise and 
adorn Himself, is that they must have been transcribed from the 
prior tablet of His own nature. 

14. We are sensible that there is much to obscure this inference 
in the actual circumstances of the world. More especially — it has 
been alleged, on the side of scepticism, that there is an exceeding 
diversity of moral judgments among men; that, out of the multifa- 
rious decisions of the human conscience, no consistent code of virtue 
can be framed ; and that, therefore, no consistent character can be 
ascribed to Him, who planted this faculty in the bosom of our spe- 
cies, and bade it speak so uncertainly and so variously.* But to 

* On the uniformity of our moral judgments, we would refer to the 74th and r.">th 
of Dr. Brown's Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind. " If we bear In 
mind," says Sir James Mackintosh, "that tin* question relates to the coincidence of 
all men i.» considering 1 the Bame qualities as virtues, and not to the preference of one 
class of virtues by some, and of a different class l>y others, the exceptions from the 
agreement of mankind, in their systems of practical morality, will be reduced to 
absolute insignificance] and we shall learn to view them as no more affecting the 



ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 49 

this it may be answered, in the first place, that the apparent diver- 
sity is partly reducible into the blinding, or, at least, the distorting 
effect of passion and interest, which sometimes are powerful enough 
to obscure our perception, even of mathematical and historical 
truths, as well as of moral distinctions ; and without therefore affect- 
ing the stability of either. It is thus, for example, that mercantile 
cupidity has blinded many a reckless adventurer to the enormous 
injustice of the slave trade ; that passion and interest together have 
transmuted revenge into a virtue ; and that the robbery, which, if 
prosecuted only lor the sake of individual gain, would have ap- 
peared to all under an aspect of most revolting selfishness, puts on 
the guise of patriotism, when a whole nation deliberates on the 
schemes, or is led by a career of daring and lofty heroism, to the 
spoliations of conquest. In all such cases, it is of capital importance 
to distinguish between the real character of any criminal action, 
when looked to calmly, comprehensively, and fully ; and what that 
is in the action which the perpetrator singles out and fastens upon 
as his plea, when he is either defending it to others, or reconciling it 
to his own conscience. In as far as he knows the deed to be inca- 
pable of vindication, and yet rushes on the performance of it, there 
is but delinquency of conduct incurred, not a diversity of moral 
judgment; nor does Conscience, in this case, at all betray any 
caprice or uncertainty in her decisions. It is but the conduct, and 
not the conscience which is in fault; and to determine whether the 
latter is in aught chargeable with fluctuation, we must look not to 
the man's performance, but to his plea. Two men may differ as to 
the moral character of an action; but if each is resting the support 
of his own view on a different principle from the other, there may 
still be a perfect uniformity of moral sentiment between them. They 
own the authority of the same laws; they only disagree in the appli- 
cation of them. In the first place, the most vehement denouncer of 
a guilty commerce is at one with the most strenuous of its advo- 
cates, on the duty which each man owes to his family; and again, 
neither of them would venture to maintain the lawfulness of the 
trade, because of the miseries inflicted by it on those wretched suf- 
ferers who were its victims. The defender of this ruthless and rapa- 
cious system disowns not, in sentiment at least, however much he 
may disown in practice, the obligations of justice and humanity — 
nay, in all the palliations which he attempts of the enormity in 
question, he speaks of these as undoubted virtues, and renders the 
homage of his moral acknowledgments to them all. In the sophistry 
of his vindication, the principles of the ethical system are left un- 
touched and entire. He meddles not with the virtuousness either of 
humanity or justice; but he tells of the humanity of slavery, and the 

harmony of the moral faculties, than the resemblance of the limbs and features is 
affected by monstrous conformations, or by the unfortunate effects of accident and 
disease in a very ft \v individuals." 

5 



50 ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 

justice of slavery. It is true, that he heeds not the representations 
which are given of the atrocities of his trade — that he does not at- 
tend because he wills not to attend ; and in this there is practical 
unfairness. Still it but resolves itself into perversity of conduct, and 
not into perversity of sentiment. The very dread and dislike he has 
for the informations of the subject, are symptoms of a feeling that 
his conscience cannot be trusted with the question ; or, in other 
words, prove him to be possessed of a conscience which is just like 
that of other men. The partialities of interest and feeling may give 
rise to an infinite diversity of moral judgments in our estimate of 
actions ; while there may be the most perfect uniformity and stabi- 
lity of judgment in our estimate of ^principles : and, on all the great 
generalities of the ethical code, Conscience may speak the same 
language, and own one and the same moral directory all the world 
over. 

15. When consciences then pronounce differently of the same 
action, it is for the most part, or rather, it is almost always, because 
understandings view it differently. It is either because the contro- 
versialists are regarding it with unequal degrees of knowledge; or, 
each, through the medium of his own partialities. The consciences 
of all would come forth with the same moral decision, were all 
equally enlightened in the circumstances, or in the essential relations 
and consequences of the deed in question ; and, what is just as essen- 
tial to this uniformity of judgment, were all viewing it fairly as well 
as fully. It matters not, whether it be ignorantly or wilfully, that each 
is looking at this deed, but in the one aspect, or in the one relation 
that is favourable to his own peculiar sentiment. In either case, 
the diversity of judgment on the moral qualities of the same action, 
is just as little to be wondered at as a similar diversity on the mate- 
rial qualities of the same object. — should any of the spectators labour 
under an involuntary defect of vision, or voluntarily persist either 
in shutting or in averting his eyes. It is thus that a quarrel has 
well been termed a misunderstanding, in which each of the com- 
batants may consider, and often honestly consider, himself to be in 
the right; and that, on reading the hostile memorials of two parties 
in a litigation, we can perceive no difference in their moral princi- 
ples, but only in their historical statements; and that, in the public 
manifestoes of nations when entering upon war, we can discover no 
trace of a contrariety of conflict in their ethical systems, but only 
in their differently put or differently coloured representations of fact: 
all proving, that, with the utmost diversity of judgment among men 
respecting the moral qualities of the same thing, there may be a per- 
fect identity of structure in their moral organs notwithstanding; 
and that Conscience, true to her office, needs hut to be rightly in- 
formed, that she may speak the same language, and give forth the 

same lessons in all the countries <>f the earth. 

16. It is this which explains the moral peculiarities of different 



ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 51 

nations. It is not that justice, humanity, and gratitude are not the 
canonized virtues of every region ; or that falsehood, cruelty, and 
fraud would not, in their abstract and unassociated nakedness, be 
viewed as the objects of moral antipathy and rebuke. It is, that, in 
one and the same material action, when looked to in all the lights of 
which, whether in reality or by the power of imagination, it is sus- 
ceptible, various, nay, opposite moral characteristics may be blended; 
and that while one people look to the good only without the evil, 
another may look to the evil only without the good. And thus the 
identical acts which in one nation are the subjects of a most reve- 
rent and religious observance, may, in another, be regarded with a 
shuddering sense of abomination and horror. And this, not because 
of any difference in what may be termed the moral categories of the 
two people, nor because, if moral principles in their unmixed gene- 
rality were offered to the contemplation of either, either would call 
evil good or good evil. When theft was publicly honoured and re- 
warded in Sparta, it was not because theft in itself was reckoned a 
good thing ; but because patriotism, and dexterity, and those ser- 
vices by which the interests of patriotism might be supported, were 
reckoned to be good things. When the natives of Hindoston assem- 
ble with delight around the agonies of a human sacrifice, it is not 
because they hold it good to rejoice in a spectacle of pain ; but 
because they hold it good to rejoice in a spectacle of heroic devo- 
tion to the memory of the dead. When parents are exposed, or 
children are destroyed, it is not because it is deemed to be right 
that there should be the infliction of misery for its own sake ; but 
because it is deemed to be right that the wretchedness of old age 
should be curtailed, or that the world should be saved from the mise- 
ries of an over-crowded species. In a word, in the very worst of 
these anomalies, some form of good may be detected, which has led 
to their establishment ; and still, some universal and undoubted prin- 
ciple of morality, however perverted or misapplied, can be alleged 
in vindication of them. A people may be deluded by their igno- 
rance ; or misguided by their superstition ; or, not only hurried into 
wrong deeds, but even fostered into wrong sentiments, under the 
influences of that cupidity or revenge, which are so perpetually ope- 
rating in the warfare of savage or demi-savage nations. Yet, in 
spite of all the topical moralities to which these have given birth, 
there is an unquestioned and universal morality notwithstanding. 
And in every case, where the moral sense is, unfettered by these as- 
sociations ; and the judgment is uncramped, either by the partialities 
of interest or by the inveteracy of national customs which habit and 
antiquity have rendered sacred — Conscience is found to speak the 
same language, nor, to the remotest ends of the world, is there a 
country or an island, where the same uniform and consistent voice 
is not heard from her. Let the mists of ignorance and passion and 
artificial education be only cleared away ; and the moral attributes 
of goodness and righteousness and truth be seen undistorted, and in 



hZ ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 

their own proper guise; and there is not a heart or a conscience 
throughout earth's teeming population, which could refuse to do 
them homage. And it is precisely because the Father of the human 
family has given such hearts and conscience, to all his children, that 
we infer these to be the very sanctities of the Godhead, the very 
attributes of his own primeval nature. 

17. There is a countless diversity of tastes in the world, because 
of the infinitely various circumstances and associations of men. 
\ r et there is a stable and correct standard of taste notwithstanding, to 
which all minds that have the benefit of culture and enlargement, 
are gradually assimilating and approximating. It holds far more 
emphatically true, that in spite of the diversity of moral judgments, 
which are vastly less wide and numerous than the former, there is a 
fixed standard of morals, rallying around itself all consciences, to 
the greater principles of which, a full and unanimous homage is ren- 
dered from every quarter of the globe ; and even to the lesser prin- 
ciples and modifications of which, there is a growing and gathering 
consent, with every onward step in the progress of light and civili- 
zation. In proportion as the understandings of men become more 
enlightened, do their consciences become more accordant with each 
other. Even now there is not a single people on the face of the 
earth, among whom barbarity and licentiousness and fraud are dei- 
fied as virtues, — where it does not require the utmost strength, 
whether of superstition or of patriotism in its most selfish and con- 
tracted form, to uphold the delusion. Apart from these local and, 
we venture to hope, these temporary exceptions, the same moralities 
are recognised and honoured ; and, however prevalent in practice, 
in sentiment at least, the same vices are disowned and execrated all 
the world over. In proportion as superstition is dissipated, and pre- 
judice is gradually weakened by the larger intercourse of nations, 
these moral peculiarities do evidently wear away ; till at length, if 
we may judge from the obvious tendency of things, conscience will, 
in the full manhood of our species, assert the universality and the 
unchangeableness of her decisions. There is no speech nor lan- 
guage, where her voice is not heard ; her line is gone out through 
all the earth; and her words to the ends of the world. 

IS. On the whole, then, conscience, whether it In* an original or 
a derived faculty, yet as founded on human nature, it' not forming a 
constituent part of it, may be regarded as a faithful witness tor God 
the author of that nature, and as rendering to his character a con- 
sistent testimony. It is nol necessary, for the establishment of our 
particular lesson, that we should turn thai which is clear into that 
which is controversial by our entering into the scientific question 
respecting the physical origin of conscience, or tracing the imagined 
pedigree of its descent from simple or anterior principles in the con- 
stitution of man. For, as has been well remarked by Sir James 
Mackintosh — " U conscience be inherent, that circumstance is, ac- 



ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 53 

cording to the common mode of thinking, a sufficient proof of its 
title to veneration. But if provision be made, in the constitution and 
circumstances of all men for uniformity, producing it by processes 
similar to those which produce other acquired sentiments, may not 
our reverence be augmented by admiration of that supreme wisdom, 
which, in such mental contrivances, yet more highly than in the 
lower world of matter, accomplish mighty purposes by instruments 
so simple?" It is not therefore the physical origin, but the fact, of 
the uniformity of conscience, wherewith is concerned the theologi- 
cal inference that we attempt to draw from it. This ascendant 
faculty of our nature, which has been so often termed the divinity 
within us, notwithstanding the occasional sophistry of the passions, 
is on the whole, representative of the Divinity above us ; and the 
righteousness and goodness and truth, the lessons of which it gives 
forth everywhere, may well be regarded, both as the laws w T hich 
enter into the juridical constitution, and as the attributes which enter 
into the moral character of God. 

19. We admit a considerable diversity of moral observation in the 
various countries of the earth, but without admitting any corres- 
pondent diversity of moral sentiment between them. When human 
sacrifices are enforced and applauded in one nation — this is not be- 
cause of their cruelty, but notwithstanding of their cruelty. Even 
there, the universal principle of humanity would be acknowledged, 
that it were wrong to inflict a wanton and uncalled for agony on 
any of our fellows — but there is a local superstition which counter- 
acts the universal principle, and overbears it. When in the republic 
of Sparta, theft, instead of being execrated as a crime, was dignified 
into an art and an accomplishment, and on that footing admitted 
into the system of their youthful education — it was not because of 
its infringement on the rights of property, but notwithstanding of 
that infringement, and only because a local patriotism made head 
against the universal principle, and prevailed over it. Apart from 
such isturbing forces as these, it will be found that the sentiments 
of men gravitate towards one and the same standard all over the 
globe; and that, when once the obscurations of superstition and 
selfishness are dissipated, there will be found the same moral light in 
every mind, a recognition of the same moral law,, as the immutable 
and eternal code of righteousness for all countries and all ages. The 
following is the noble testimony of a heathen, who tells us with equal 
eloquence and truth, that, even amid all the perversities of a vitiated 
and endlessly diversified creed, conscience sat mistress over the 
whole earth, and asserted the supremacy of her own unalterable ob- 
ligations. " Est quidem vera lex, recta ratio,, naturae congruens, 
diffusa in omnes, constans, sempiterna,. quae vocet ad officium 
jubendo, vetando a fraude deterreat ; quae; tamen neque probis frus- 
tra jubet aut vetat, nee improbos jubendo aut vetando movet. Huic 
legi nee obrogari fas est, neque derogari ex hae aliquid licet, neque 

5* 



54 ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 

tota. abrogari potest. Nee vero, aut per senatum aut per populum 
solvi hac lege possumus. Neque est quaefendus explanator aut inter- 
pres ejus alius. Nee erit alia lex Romse, alia Athenis, alia nunc, 
alia posthac; sed et omnes gentes, et omni tempore, una lex et 
sempiterna et immortalis continebit ; unusque erit communis quasi 
magister, et imperator omnium Deus ille, legis hujus inventor, dis- 
ceptator, lator; cui qui non parebit, ipse se fugiet, ac natururn homi- 
nus aspernabitur, atque hoc ipso luet maximas pcenas, etiam si cse- 
tera supplicia quse putantur effugerit." 

20. Such then is our first argument for the moral character of 
God — even the moral character of the law of conscience ; that con- 
science which He hath inserted among the faculties of our nature; 
and armed with the felt authority of a master; and furnished with 
sanctions for the enforcement of its dictates ; and so framed, that, 
apart from the local perversities of the understanding or the habits, 
all its decisions are on the side of righteousness. The inference is 
neither a distant nor an obscure one, from the character of such a 
law to the character of its law-giver. Neither is it an inference, de- 
stroyed by the insurrection which has taken place on the part of our 
lower faculties, or by the actual prevalence of vice in the world. 
For this has only enabled conscience to come forth with another 
and additional demonstration of its sovereignty — just as the punish- 
ment of crime in society bears evidence to the justice of the govern- 
ment which is established there. In general, the inward compla- 
cency fek by the virtuous, does not so impressively bespeak the real 
purpose and character of this the ruling faculty in man, as do the 
remorse, and the terror, and the bitter dissatisfaction, wherewith the 
hearts of the wicked are exercised. It is true, that, by every act. of 
iniquity, outrage is done to the law of conscience; but there is a felt 
reaction within which tells that the outrage is resented ; and then it 
is, that conscience makes most emphatic assertion of its high prero- 
gative, when, instead of coming forth as the benign and generous 
dispenser of its rewards to the obedient, it comes forth like an offended 
monarch in the character of an avenger. Were we endowed with 
prophetic vision, so as to behold, among the yet undisclosed secrets 
of futurity, the spectacle of a judge, and a judgment-seat, and an as- 
sembled world, and the retributions of pleasure and pain to the good 
and to the evil; this were fetching from afar an argumenl foT the 
righteousness of God. But the instant pleasure nnd the instanl pain 
wherewith conscience follows up the doings of man. brings this very 
argument within the limits of actual observation. Only, instead oi 
being manifested by the light of a preternatural revelation, it is sug- 
gested to us by one of the most familiar certainties of experience, 
for in these phenomena and feelings of our own moral nature, do 
we behold not only a present judgment, but a present execution of 
the sentence. 



55 
CHAPTER II. 

SECOND GENERAL ARGUMENT. 

On the inherent Pleasure of the Virtuous, and Misery of the Vicious 

•Affections. 

1. We are often told by moralists, that there is a native and essen- 
tial happiness in moral worth; and a like native and essential 
wretchedness in moral depravity — insomuch that the one may be 
regarded as its own reward, and the other as its own punishment. 
We do not always recollect that this happiness on the one hand, and 
this misery on the other, are each of them made up, severally of 
distinct ingredients; and that thus, by mental analysis, we might 
strengthen our argument both for the being and the character of 
God. When we discover, that, into this alleged happiness of the 
good there enter more enjoyments than one, we, thereby obtain two 
or more testimonies of the divine regard for virtue ; and the proof is 
enhanced in the same peculiar way, that the evidence of design is, 
in any other department of creation, when we perceive the concur- 
rence of so many separate and independent elements, which meet 
together for the production of some complex and beneficial result.* 

2. We have already spoken of one such ingredient. There is a 
felt satisfaction in the thought of having done what we know to be 
right ; and, in counterpart to this complacency of self-approbation, 
there is a felt discomfort, amounting often to bitter and remorseful 
agony, in the thought of having done what conscience tells us to be 
wrong. This implies a sense of the rectitude of what is virtuous. 
But without thinking of its rectitude at all, without viewing it in 
reference either to the law of conscience or to the law of God, w 7 ith 
no regard to jurisprudence in the matter — there is, in the virtuous 
affection itself, another and a distinct enjoyment. We ought to 
cherish and to exercise benevolence ; and there is a pleasure in the 
consciousness of doing what we ought : but beside this moral senti- 
ment, and beside the peculiar pleasure appended to benevolence as 
moral, there is a sensation in the merely physical affection of bene- 
volence ; and that sensation of itself, is in the highest degree pleasur- 
able. The primary or instant gratification which there is in the 
direct and immediate feeling of benevolence is one thing: the 
secondary or reflex gratification which there is in the consciousness 
of benevolence as moral is another thing. The two are distinct of 
themselves; but the contingent union of them, in the case of every 
virtuous affection, gives a multiple force to the conclusion, that God 
is the lover, and, because so, the patron or the rewarder of virtue. 
He hath so constituted our nature, that in the very flow and exer- 

* See Chap. I. & 



56 PLEASURE OF VIRTUOUS, AND 

cise of the good affections, there shall be the oil of gladness. There 
is instant delight in the first conception of benevolence. There is 
sustained delight in its continued exercise. There is consummated 
delight in the happy smiling and prosperous result of it. Kindness, 
and honesty, and truth, are, of themselves, and irrespective of their 
Tightness, sweet unto the taste of the inner man. Malice, envy, 
falsehood, injustice, irrespective of their wrongness, have of them- 
selves, the bitterness of gall and wormwood. The Deity hath 
annexed a high mental enjoyment, not to the consciousness only of 
good affections, but to the very sense and feeling of good affections. 
However closely these may follow on each other — nay, however 
implicated or blended together they may be at the same moment 
into one compound state of feeling ; they are not the less distinct on 
that account, of themselves. They form two pleasurable sensations, 
instead of one ; and their apposition, in the case of every virtuous 
deed or virtuous desire, exhibits to us that very concurrence in the 
world of mind, which obtains with such frequency and fulness in the 
world of matter — affording, in every new part that is added, not a 
simply repeated only, but a vastly multiplied evidence for design, 
throughout all its combinations. There is a pleasure in the very 
sensation of virtue ; and there is a pleasure attendant on the sense of 
its rectitude. These two phenomena are independent of each other. 
Let there be a certain number of chances against the first in a ran- 
dom economy of things, and also a certain number of chances 
against the second. In the actual economy of things, where there 
is the conjunction of both phenomena — it is the product of those two 
numbers which represents the amount of evidence afforded by them, 
for a moral government in the world, and a moral Governor over 
them. 

3. In the calm satisfactions of virtue, this distinction may not be 
so palpable, as in the pungent and more vividly felt disquietudes 
which are attendant on the wrong affections of our nature. The 
perpetual corrosion of that heart, for example, which frets in un- 
happy peevishness all the day long, is plainly distinct from the bitter- 
ness of that remorse which is felt, in the recollection of its harsh and 
injurious outbreakings on the innocent sufferers within its reach. It 
is saying much for the moral character of God, that he has placed a 
conscience within us, which administers painful rebuke on every in- 
dulgence of a wrong affection. But it is saying still more for such 
being the character of our Maker — so to have framed our mental 
constitution, that in the very working o\' these bad affections there 
should be the painfullness of a fell discomfort and discordancy. Such 
is the make or mechanism of our nature, that it is thwarted and put 
out of sorts, by rage and envy, and hatred : and this, irrespective of 
the adverse moral judgments which conscience passes upon them. 
Of themselves, they are unsavory : and no sooner do they enter the 
heart, than they shed upon it an Immediate distillation of bitterness;. 



MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS. 57 

Just as the placid smile of benevolence bespeaks the felt comfort of 
benevolence; so, in the frown and tempest of an angry countenance, 
do we read the unhappiness of that man who is vexed and agitated 
by his own malignant affections — eating inwardly as they do on the 
vitals of his enjoyment. It is, therefore, that he is often styled, and 
truly, a self-tormentor ; or, his own worst enemy. The delight of 
virtue in itself, is a separate thing from the delight of the conscience 
w r hich approves it. And the pain of moral evil in itself, is a sepa- 
rate thing from the pain inflicted by conscience in the act of con- 
demning it. They offer to our notice two distinct ingredients, both 
of the present reward attendant upon virtue, and of the present 
penalty attendant upon vice; and so, enhance the evidence that is 
before our eyes, for the moral character of that administration, 
under which the world has been placed by its author. The appe- 
tite of hunger is rightly alleged, in evidence of the care, wherewith 
the Deity hath provided for the well-being of our natural constitu- 
tion ; and the pleasurable tase of food is rightly alleged as an addi- 
tional proof of the same. And so, if the urgent voice of conscience 
within, calling us to virtue, be alleged in evidence of the care, 
wherewith the Deity hath provided for the well-being of our moral 
constitution ; the pleasurable taste of virtue in itself, with the bitter- 
ness of its opposite, may well be alleged as additional evidence there- 
of. They alike afford the present and the sensible tokens of a righte- 
ous administration, and so of a righteous God. 

4. Our present argument is grounded, neither on the rectitude of 
virtue, nor on its utility in the grosser and more palpable sense of 
that term — but on the immediate sweetness of it. It is the office of 
conscience to tell us of its rectitude. It is by experience that we 
learn its utility. But the sweetness of it — the dulce of virtue, as 
distinguished from its utile, is a thing of instant sensation. It may 
be decomposed into two ingredients, with one of which conscience 
has to do — even the pleasure we have, when any deed or any affec- 
tion of ours receives from her a favourable verdict. But it has 
another ingredient which forms the proper and the distinct argument 
that we are now urging — even the pleasure we have in the mere 
relish of the affection itself. If it be a proof of benevolence in God, 
that our external organs of taste should have been so framed, as to 
have a liking for wholesome food ; it is no less the proof both of a 
benevolent and a righteous God, so to have framed our mental 
economy, as that right and wholesome morality should be palatable 
to the taste of the inner man. Virtue is not only seen to be bright — 
it is felt to be delicious. There is happiness in the very wish to 
make others happy. There is a heart's ease, or a heart's enjoy- 
ment, even in the first purposes of kindness, as well as in its subse- 
quent performances. There is a certain rejoicing sense of clearness 
in the consistency, the exactitude of justice and truth. There is a 
triumphant elevation of spirit in magnanimity and honour. In per- 



58 PLEASURE OF VIRTUOUS, AND 

feet harmony with this, there is a placid feeling of serenity and bliss- 
ful contentment in gentleness and humility. There is a noble satis- 
faction in those victories, which, at the bidding of principle, or by 
the power of self-command, may have been achieved over the pro- 
pensities of animal nature. There is an elate independence of soul, 
in the consciousness of having nothing to hide, and nothing to be 
ashamed of. In a word, by the constitution of our nature, each 
virtue has its appropriate charm ; and virtue, on the whole, is a fund 
of varied, as well as of perpetual enjoyment, to him who hath im- 
bibed its spirit, and is under the guidance of its principles. He feels 
all to be health and harmony within ; and without he seems as if to 
breathe in an atmosphere of beauteous transparency — proving how 
much the nature of man and the nature of virtue are in unison with 
each other. It is hunger which urges to the use of food; but it 
strikingly demonstrates the care and benevolence of God, so to have 
framed the organ of taste, as that there shall be a superadded en- 
joyment in the use of it. It is conscience which urges to the prac- 
tice of virtue ; but it serves to enhance the proof of a moral purpose, 
and therefore of a moral character in God, so to have framed our 
mental economy, that, in addition to the felt obligation of its Tight- 
ness, virtue should of itself, be so regaling to the taste of the inner 
man. 

5. In counterpart to these sweets and satisfactions of virtue, is the 
essential and inherent bitterness of all that is morally evil. We re- 
peat, that, with this particular argument, we do not mix up the 
agonies of remorse. It is the wretchedness of vice in itself, not the 
wretchedness which we suffer because of its recollected and felt 
wrongness that we now speak of. It is not the painfulness of the 
compunction felt because of our anger, upon which we at this mo- 
ment insist; but the painfulness of the emotion itself; and the same 
remark applies to all the malignant desires of the human heart. True, 
it is inseparable from the very nature of a desire, that there must be 
some enjoyment or other, at the time of its gratification ; but, in the 
case of these evil affections, it is not unmixed enjoyment. The most 
ordinary observer of his own feelings, however incapable of analy- 
sis, must be sensible, even at the moment of wreaking, in full indul- 
gence of his resentment, on the man who has provoked or injured 
him, that all is not perfect and entire enjoyment within ; but that, in 
this, and indeed in every other malignant feeling, there is a sore 
burden of disquietude — an unhappiness tumultuating in the heart, and 
visibly pictured on the countenance. The ferocious tyrant who has 
only to issue forth his mandate, and strike dead at pleasure the vic- 
tim of his wrath, with any circumstance too of barbaric caprice and 
cruelty, which his fancy in the very waywardness of passion unre- 
strained and power unbounded might suggest to him — he may be 
said to have experienced through life a thousand gratifications, in 
the solaced rage and revenge, which, though ever breaking forth on 



MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS. 59 

some new subject, he can appease again every day of his life by 
some new execution. But we mistake it if we think otherwise than 
that, in spite of these distinct and very numerous nay daily gratifi- 
cations if he so choose, it is not a life of fierce internal agony not- 
withstanding. It seems indispensable to the nature of every desire, 
and to form part indeed of its very idea, that there should be a dis- 
tinctly felt pleasure, or at least, a removal at the time of a distinctly 
felt pain, in the act of its fulfilment — yet, whatever recreation or re- 
lief may have thus been rendered, without doing away the misery 
often in the whole amount of it the intense misery, inflicted upon 
man by the evil propensities of his nature. Who can doubt for ex- 
ample the unhappiness of the habitual drunkard ? and that, although 
the ravenous appetite, by which he is driven along a stormy career, 
meets every day, almost every hour of the day, with the gratifica- 
tion that is'suited to it. The same may be equally affirmed of the 
voluptuary, or of the depredator, or of the extortioner, or of the liar. 
Each may succeed in the attainment of his specific object ; and we 
cannot possibly disjoin from the conception of success the conception 
of some sort of pleasure — yet in perfect consistency, we affirm, with 
a sad and heavy burthen of unpleasantness or unhappiness on the 
whole. He is little conversant with our nature who does not know 
of many a passion belonging to it, that it may be the instrument of 
many pleasurable, nay delicious or exquisite sensations, and yet be 
a wretched passion still ; the domineering tyrant of a bondsman, 
who at once knows himself to be degraded, and feels himself to be 
unhappy. A sense of guilt is one main ingredient of this misery — 
yet physically, and notwithstanding the pleasure or the relief insepa- 
rable at the moment from every indulgence of the passions, there 
are other sensations of bitterness, which of themselves, and apart 
from remorse, would cause the suffering to preponderate. 

6. There is an important discrimination made by Bishop Butler 
in his sermons ; and, by the help of which, this phenomenon, of ap- 
parent contradiction or mystery in our nature, may be satisfactorily 
explained. He distinguishes between the final object of any of our 
desires, and the pleasure attendant on or rather inseparable from its 
gratification. The object is not the pleasure, though the pleasure 
be an unfailing and essential accompaniment on the attainment of 
the object. This is well illustrated by the appetite of hunger, of 
which it were more proper to say that it seeks for food, than that it 
seeks for the pleasure which there is in eating the food. The food 
is the object ; the pleasure is the accompaniment. We do not here 
speak of the distinct and secondary pleasure which there is in the 
taste of food, but of that other pleasure which strictly and properly 
attaches to the gratification of the appetite of hunger. This is the 
pleasure, or relief, which accompanies the act of eating; while the 
ultimate object, the object in which the appetite rests and terminates, 
is the food itself. The same is true of all our special affections. 



60 PLEASURE OF VIRTUOUS, AND 

Each has a proper and peculiar object of its own, and the mere 
pleasure attendant on the prosecution or the indulgence of the affec- 
tion is not, as has been clearly established by Butler and fully reas- 
serted by Dr. Thomas Brown, is not that object. The two are as 
distinct from each other, as a thing loved is distinct from the plea- 
sure of loving it. Every special inclination has its special and coun- 
terpart object. The object of the inclination is one thing; the plea- 
sure of gratifying the inclination is another; and, in most instances, 
it were more proper to say, that it is for the sake of the object than 
for the sake of the pleasure that the inclination is gratified. The 
distinction that we now urge, though felt to be a subtle, is truly a 
substantial one; and pregnant, both with important principle and 
important application. The discovery and clear statement of it by 
Butler may well be regarded as the highest service rendered by any 
philosopher to moral science ; and that, from the light which it casts, 
both on the processes of the human constitution and on the theory 
of virtue. As one example of the latter service, the principle in 
question, so plainly and convincingly unfolded by this great Chris- 
tian philosopher in his sermon on the love of our neighbour, strikes, 
and with most conclusive effect, at the root of the selfish system of 
morals ; a system which professes that man's sole object, in the 
practice of all the various moralities, is his own individual advan- 
tage. Now, in most cases of a special, and more particularly of a 
virtuous affection, it can be demonstrated, that the object is a some- 
thing out of himself and distinct from himself. Take compassion 
for one instance out of the many. The object of this affection is the 
relief of another's misery, and, in the fulfilment of this, does the 
affection meet with its full solace and gratification ; that is, in a 
something altogether external from himself. It is true, that there is 
an appropriate pleasure in the indulgence of this affection, even as 
there is in the indulgence of every other; and in proportion, too, to 
the strength of the affection, will be the greatness of the pleasure. 
The man who is doubly more compassionate than his fellow, will 
have doubly a greater enjoyment in the relief of misery ; yet that, 
most assuredly, not because he of the two is the more intently set 
on his own gratification, but because he of the two is the more in- 
tently set on an outward accomplishment, the relief of another's 
wretchedness. The truth is, that, just because more compassionate 
than his fellow, the more intent is he than the: other on the object of 
this affection, and the less intent is he than the other on himself the 
subject of this affection. His thoughts and feelings are more drawn 
away to the sufferer, and therefore more drawn away /ran himself 
He is the most occupied with the object of this affection : ami, on 
that very account, the least occupied with the pleasures o( its indul- 
gence. And it is precisely the objective quality of these regards, 
which stamps upon compassion the character of a disinterested affec- 
tion. He surely is the most compassionate, whose thoughts and 



MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS. 61 

feelings are most drawn away to the sufferer, and most drawn away 
from self; or, in other words, most taken up with the direct consi- 
deration of him who is the object of this affection, and least taken 
up with the reflex consideration of the pleasure that he himself has 
in the indulgence of it. Yet this prevents not the pleasure from be- 
ing actually felt ; and felt, too, in very proportion to the intensity of 
the compassion ; or, in other words, more felt the less it has been 
thought of at the time, or the less it has been pursued for its own 
sake. It seems unavoidable in every affection, that, the more a thing 
is loved, the greater must be the pleasure of indulging the love of it: 
yet it is equally unavoidable, that the greater in that case will be our 
aim towaids the object of the affection, and the less will be our aim 
towards the pleasure which accompanies its gratification. And thus, 
to one who reflects profoundly and carefully on these things, it is no 
paradox that he who has had doubly greater enjoyment than ano- 
ther in the exercise of compassion, is doubly the more disinterested 
of the two ; that he has had the most pleasure in this affection who 
has been the least careful to please himself with the indulgence of it; 
that he whose virtuous desires, as being the strongest, have in their 
gratification ministered to self the greatest satisfaction, has been the 
least actuated of all his fellows by the wishes, and stood at the great- 
est distance from the aims of selfishness.* 

7. And moreover, there is a just and philosophical sense, in which 
many of our special affections, besides the virtuous, are alike disin- 
terested with these ; even though they have been commonly ranked 
among the selfish affections of our nature. The proper object of 
self-love is the good of self; and this calm general regard to our own 
happiness may be considered, in fact, as the only interested affection 
to which our nature is competent. The special affections are, one 
and all of them, distinct from self-love, both in their objects, and in 
the real psychological character of the affections themselves. The 
object of the avaricious affection is the acquirement of wealth : of 
the resentful, the chastisement of an offender ; of the sensual, some- 
thing appropriate or suited to that corporeal affection which forms 
the reigning appetite at the time. In none of these, is the good of 
self the proper discriminative object of the affection ; and the mind 
of him who is under their pow r er, and engaged in their prosecution, 
is differently employed, from the mind of him, who, at the time, is 
either devising or doing aught for the general or abstract end of his 
own happiness. None of these special affections is identical with 
the affection which has happiness for its object. So far from this, 
the avaricious man often, conscious of the strength of his propensity, 
and at the moment of being urged forward by it to new specula- 
tions, acknowledges in his heart, that he would be happier far, could 

• The purely disinterested character of a right religious affection might be 
proved by these considerations. 

6 



62 PLEASURE OF VIRTUOUS, AND 

he but moderate its violence, and be satisfied with an humbler fortune 
than that to which his aspirations would carry him. And the re- 
sentful man, in the very act of being tempest-driven to some furious 
onset against the person who has affronted or betrayed him, may 
yet be sensible that, instead of seeking for any benefit to himself, he 
is rushing on the destruction of his character, or fortune, or even 
life. And many is the drunkard who under the goadings of an 
appetite which he cannot withstand, in place of self-love being the 
principle, and his own greatest happiness the object, knows himself 
to be on the road to inevitable ruin. There is an affection which 
has happiness for its object ; but this is not the affection which rules 
and has the ascendency in any of these instances. These are all 
special affections, grounded on the affinities which obtain between cer- 
tain objects and certain parts of human nature; and which cannot be 
indulged beyond a given extent, without distemper and discomfort 
to the whole nature ; so that, in spite of all the particular gratifica- 
tions which follow in their train, the man over whom they tyrannize 
may be unhappy upon the whole. The very distinction between the 
affection of self-love and the special affections proves that there is a 
corresponding distinction in their objects ; and this again, that many 
of the latter may be gratified, while the former is disappointed, — or, 
in other words, that, along with many particular enjoyments the 
general state of man may be that of utter and extreme wretched- 
ness. It is therefore a competent question, what those special affec- 
tions are, which most consist with the general happiness of the mind ; 
and this, notwithstanding that they all possess one circumstance in 
common — the unavoidable pleasure appendant to the gratification of 
each of them. * 

* The following are the clear and judicious observations of Sir James Mackintosh 
on this subject: — 

"In contending 1 , therefore, that the benevolent affections are disinterested, no 
more is claimed for them than must be granted to mere animal appetites and to 
malevolent passions. Each of these principles alike seeks its own object, for the 
sake simply of obtaining it. Pleasure is the result of the attainment, but no sepa- 
rate part of the aim of the agent. The desire that another person may be gratified, 
seeks that outward object alone, according to the general course of human desire. 
Resentment is as disinterested as gratitude or pity, but not more so. Hunger or 
thirst may be as much as the purest benevolence, at variance with self-love. A 
regard to our own general happiness is not a vice, but in itself an excellent quality. 
It were well if it prevailed more generally over craving and short-sighted appetites. 
The weakness of the social affections, and the strength of the private desires, pro- 
perly constitute selfishness; a vice utterly at variance with the happiness of him 
who harbours it, and as such, condemned by self-love. There are as few who 
attain the greatest satisfaction to themselves, as who do the greatest good to others. 
It is absurd to say with some, that the pleasure of benevolence is selfish, because it 
is felt by self. Understanding and reasoning are acts of self, for no man can think 
by proxy; but no man ever called them stilish, why' 1 Evidently because they do not 
regard self. Precisely the same reason applies to benevolence. Such an argument 
is a gross confusion of self, as it is a subject (A' feeling or thought, with self consi- 
dered as the <>l>/:cf of either, it is no more just to refer the private appetites to 

self-love because they commonly promote happiness, than it would be to refer 
them to self-hatred, in those frequent cases where their gratification obstructs it." 



MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS. 63 

8. This explanation will help us to understand wherein it is that 
the distinction in point of enjoyment, between a good and an evil 
affection of our nature properly lies. For there is a certain species 
of enjoyment common to them all. It were a contradiction in terms 
to affirm otherwise ; for it were tantamount to saying, that an affec- 
tion may be gratified, without the actual experience of a gratifica- 
tion. There must be some sensation or other of happiness, at the 
time when a man obtains that which he is seeking for ; and if it be 
not a positive sensation of pleasure, it will at least be the sensation 
of a relief from pain, as when one meets with the opportunity of 
wreaking upon its object, that indignation which had long kept his 
heart in a tumult of disquietude. We therefore would mistake the 
matter, if we thought, that a state even of thorough and unqualified 
wickedness was exclusive of all enjoyment — for even the vicious 
affections must share in that enjoyment, which inseparably attaches 
to every affection, at the moment of its indulgence. And thus it is, 
that even in the veriest Pandemonium, might there be lurid gleams 
of ecstacy, and shouts of fiendish exultation — the merriment of des- 
peradoes in crime, who send forth the outcries of their spiteful and 
savage delight, when some deep-laid villany has triumphed ; or when, 
in some dire perpetration of revenge, they have given full satisfaction 
and discharge to the malignity of their accursed nature. The asser- 
tion therefore may be taken too generally, when it is stated, that 
there is no enjoyment whatever in the veriest hell of assembled out- 
casts ; for even there, might there be many separate and specific 
gratifications. And we must abstract the pleasure essentially in 
volved in every affection, at the instant of its indulgence, and which 
cannot possibly be disjoined from it, ere we see clearly and distinc- 
tively wherein it is that, in respect of enjoyment, the virtuous and 
vicious affections differ from each other. For it is true, that there 
is a common resemblance between them ; and that, by the universal 
law and nature of affection, there must be some sort of agreeable 
sensation, in the act of their obtaining that which they are seeking 
after. Yet it is no less true, that, did the former affections bear 
supreme rule in the heart, they would brighten and tranquillize 
the whole of human existence — whereas, had the latter the entire 
and practical ascendency, they would distemper the whole man, 
and make him as completely wretched as he were completely 
worthless. 

9. There is one leading difference then between a virtuous and a 
vicious affection — that there is always a felt sweetness in the very 
presence and contact of the former ; whereas, in the presence and 
contact of the latter, there is generally or very often at least, a sen- 
sation of bitterness. Let them agree as they may in the undoubted 
fact of a gratification in the attainment of their respective ends, the 
affections themselves may be long in existence and operation before 
their ends are arrived at ; and then it is, we affirm, that if compared, 



64 PLEASURE OF VIRTUOUS, AND 

there will be found a wide distinction and dissimilarity between 
them. The very feeling of kindness is pleasant to the heart ; and 
the very feeling of anger is a painful and corrosive one. The latter, 
we know, is often said to be a mixed feeling — because of both the 
pleasure and the pain which are said to enter into it. But it will be 
found that the pleasure, in this case, lies in the prospect of a full and 
final gratification ; and very often, in a sort of current or partial 
gratification which one may experience beforehand, in the mere vent 
or utterance by words, of the labouring violence that is within — 
seeing that words of bitterness, when discharged on the object of 
our wrath, are sometimes the only, and even the most effective 
executioners of all the vengeance that we meditate ; besides that by 
their means, we may enlist in our favour the grateful sympathy of 
other men — thus obtaining a solace to ourselves, and aggravating 
the punishment of the offender, by exciting against him, in addition 
to our own hostility, the hostile indignation of his fellows. And thus 
too is it, that, in the case of anger, there may not only be a com- 
pleted gratification at the last, by the infliction of a full and satisfac- 
tory chastisement; but a gratification, as it were by instalments, 
with every likely purpose of retaliation that we may form in our 
bosoms, and every sentence of keen and reproachful eloquence that 
may fall from our lips. And so anger has been affirmed to be a 
mixed emotion, from confounding the pleasure that lies in the grati- 
fication of the emotion, with the pleasure that is supposed to lie in the 
feeling of the emotion. But the truth is, that, apart from the gratifi- 
cation, the emotion is an exceedingly painful one — insomuch that 
the gratification mainly lies in the removal of a pain, or in the being 
ridded of a felt uneasiness. Compassion may in the same way be 
termed a mixed feeling. But on close attention to these two affec- 
tions and comparison between them, it will be found, that all the 
pleasure, of anger lies in its gratification, and all the pain of it in the 
feeling itself— whereas all the pain of compassion lies in the disap- 
pointment of its gratification, while in the feeling itself there is 
nought but pleasure. Let the respective gratifications of these two 
affections — the one, by the fulfilled retaliation of a wrong : the other, 
by the fulfilled relief of a suffering — let these gratifications be put out 
of notice altogether, that we might but attend to the yet ungratified 
feelings themselves: and we cannot imagine a greater difference o[ 
state between two minds, than that of one which luxuriates in the 
tenderness of compassion, and that of another which breathes and is 
infuriated with the dark passions and the still darker purposes of 
resentment. Or we may appeal to the experience o( the same mind, 
which atone time may have its hour of meditated kindness, and at 

another its hour of meditated revenge. We speak of these two. not 

in the moment of their respective triumphs, not o\ the sensations 
attendant on the success of each — but o\' the direct and instant sen- 
sations which lie in the feelings themselves. They form two as 



MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS. 65 

distinct states in the moral world, as sunshine and tempest are in the 
physical world. We have but to name the elements which enter 
into the composition of each, in order to suggest the utter contra- 
riety which obtains between them — between the calm and placid 
cheerfulness on the one hand of that heart which is employed in 
conceiving the generous wishes, or in framing the liberal and fruitful 
devices of benevolence ; and, on the other hand, the turbulence and 
fierce disorder of the same heart, when burning disdain, or fell and 
implacable hatred has taken possession of it — the reaction of its 
own affronted pride, or aggrieved sense of the injury which has been 
done to it. 

10. But perhaps the most favourable moment for comparison 
between them, is when each is frustrated of its peculiar aim ; and so 
each is sent back upon itself, with that common suffering to which 
all the affections are liable — the suffering of a disappointment. We 
shall be at no loss to determine on which side the advantage lies, if 
w T e have either felt or witnessed benevolence in tears, because of the 
misery which it cannot alleviate; and rage, in the agonies of its de- 
feated impotence, because of the haughty or successful defiance of 
an enemy, w r hom with vain hostility it has tried to assail, but cannot 
reach. We have the example of a good affection under disappoint- 
ment, in the case of virtuous grief or virtuous indignation ; and of a 
bad affection under disappointment, in the case of envy, when, in 
spite of every attempt to calumniate or depress its object, he shines 
forth to universal acknowledgment and applause, in all the lustre of 
his vindicated superiority. It marks how distinct these two sets of 
feelings are from each other, that, with the former, even under the 
pain of disappointment, there is a something in the very taste and 
quality of the feelings themselves, which acts as an emollient or a 
charm, and mitigates the painfulness — w 7 hile, with the latter, there is 
nought to mitigate, but everything to exasperate, and more fiercely 
to agonize. The malignant feelings are no sooner turned inwardly, 
by the arrest of a disappointment from without, than they eat in- 
wardly ; and, when foiled in the discharge of their purposed violence 
upon others, they recoil — and, without one soothing ingredient to 
calm the labouring effervescence, they kindle a hell in the heart of 
the unhappy owner. Internally, there is a celestial peace and satis- 
faction in virtue, even though in the midst of its outward discomfi- 
ture, it may be compelled to w r eep over the unredressed wrongs and 
sufferings of humanity. On the other hand, the very glance of dis- 
appointed malevolence, bespeaks of this evil affection, that, of itself, 
it is a fierce and fretting distemper of the soul, an executioner oi 
vengeance for all the guilty passions it may have fanned into 
mischievous activity, and for all the crimes it may have instigated. 

11. And this contiast between a good and an evil affection, this 
superiority of the former to the latter is fully sustained, when, instead 
of looking to the state of mind which is left by the disappointmeat 

6* 



66 PLEASURE OF VIRTUOUS, AND 

of each, we look to the state of mind which is left by their respective 
gratifications — the one a state of sated compassion, the other of sated 
resentment. There is one most observable distinction between the 
states of feeling, by which an act of compassion on the one hand, 
and of resentment on the other, are succeeded. It is seldom that 
man feasts his eyes on that spectacle of prostrate suffering which, 
in a moment of fury, he hath laid at his feet ; in the same way that 
he feasts his eyes on that picture of family comfort which smiles 
upon him from some cottage home, that his generosity had reared. 
This looks as if the sweets of benevolence were lasting, whereas the 
sweets of revengeful malice, such as they are, are in general but 
momentary. An act of compassion may extinguish for a time the 
feeling of a compassion, by doing away that suffering which is the 
object of it ; but then it generally is followed up by a feeling of 
permanent regard. An act of revenge, when executed to the full 
extent of the desire or purpose, does extinguish and put an end to the 
passion of revenge ; and is seldom, if ever, followed up by a feeling 
of permanent hatred. An act of kindness but attaches the more, 
and augments a friendly disposition towards its object. It were both 
untrue in itself, and unfair to our nature to say, that an act of re- 
venge but exasperates the more, and always augments, or even often 
augments, a hostile disposition towards its object. It has been said that 
we hate the man whom we have injured : but whatever the truth of this 
observation may be, certain it is, that we do not so hate the man of 
whom we have taken full satisfaction for having injured us : or, if we 
could imagine aught so monstrous, and happily so rare, as the prolong- 
ed, the yet unquelled satisfaction of one, who could be regaled for hours 
with the sighs of him whom his own hands had wounded ; or, for 
months and years, with the pining destitution of the household whom 
himself had impoverished and brought low ; this were because the 
measure of the revenge had not equalled the measure of the felt pro- 
vocation, only perhaps to be appeased and satiated by death. This, 
at length, would terminate the emotion. And here a new insight 
opens upon us into the distinction between a good and a bad affec- 
tion. Benevolence, itself of immortal quality, would immortalize 
its objects: malignity, if not appeased by an infliction short of death, 
would destroy them.* The one is ever strengthening itself upon old 
objects, and fastening upon new ones; the other is ever extinguishing 
its resentment towards old objects by the pettier arts of chastise- 
ment, or, if nothing short of a capital punishment will appease it. by 
<}ying with their death. The exterminating blow, the death which 
tk clears all scores" — this forms the natural and necessary limit even 
to the fiercest revenge; whereas, the outgoings ^i' benevolence are 
quite indefinite. In revenge, the affection is successively extinguish- 

• So true it is, that he who hatcth his brother with implacable hatred is a inur- 

derer. 



MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS. 67 

ed ; and, if returned, it is upon new objects. In benevolence, the 
affection is kept up for old objects, while ever open to excitement 
from new ones ; and hence a living and multiplying power of en- 
joyment, which is peculiarly its own. On the same principle that 
we water a shrub just because we had planted it, does our friendship 
grow and ripen the more towards him on whom we had formerly 
exercised it. The affection of kindness for each individual object 
survives the act of kindness, or, rather, is strengthened by the act. 
Whatever sweetness may have been originally in it, is enhanced by 
the exercise ; and, so far from being stifled by the first gratification, 
it remains in greater freshness than ever for higher and larger grati- 
fications than before. It is the perennial quality of their gratifica- 
tion, which stamps that superiority on the good affections, we are 
now contending for. Benevolence both perpetuates itself upon its 
old objects, and expands itself into a wider circle as it meets with 
new ones. Not so with revenge, which generally disposes of the 
old object by one gratification ; and then must transfer itself to a 
new object, ere it can meet with another gratification. Let us grant 
that each affection has its peculiar walk of enjoyment. The history 
of the one walk presents us with a series of accumulations ; the 
history of the other with a series of extinctions. 

12. But in dwelling on this beautiful peculiarity, by which a good 
affection is distinguished from a bad one, we are in danger of weak- 
ening our immediate argument. We bring forward the matter a 
great deal too favourably for the malignant desires of the human 
heart, if, while reasoning on the supposition of an enjoyment, however 
transitory in their gratification, we give any room for the imagina- 
tion that even this is unmixed enjoyment. We have already stated, 
that, of themselves and anterior to their gratification, there is a 
painfullness in these desires ; and that when by their gratification we 
get quit of this painfulness, we might after all obtain little more than 
a relief from misery. But the truth is, that, generally speaking, we 
obtain a great deal less on the side of happiness than this ; for, in 
most cases, all that we obtain by the gratification of a malignant 
passion, is but the exchange of one misery for another ; and this 
apart still from the remorse of an evil perpetration. There is one 
familiar instance of it, which often occurs in conversation — when, 
piqued by something offensive in the remark or manner of our fel- 
lows, we react with a severity which humbles and overwhelms him. 
In this case, the pain of the resentment is succeeded by the pain we 
feel in the spectacle of that distress which ourselves have created : 
and this, too, aggravated perhaps by the reprobation of all the by- 
standers, affording thereby a miniature example of the painful alter- 
nations which are constantly taking place in the history of moral 
evil ; when the misery of wrong affections is but replaced, to the 
perpetrator himself, by the misery of the wrong actions to which 
they have hurried him. It is thus that a life of frequent gratification 



68 PLEASURE OF VIRTUOUS, AND 

may, notwithstanding, be a life of intense wretchedness. It may 
help our imagination of such a state, to conceive of one, subject 
every hour to the agonies of hunger, with such a mal-conformation 
at the same time in his organ of taste, that, in food of every de- 
scription, he felt a bitter and universal nausea. There w r ere here a 
constant gratification, yet a constant and severe endurance — a mere 
alternation of cruel sufferings — the displacement of one set of 
agonies, by the substitution of other agonies in their room. This is 
seldom, perhaps never, realized in the physical world ; but in the 
moral world it is a great and general phenomenon. The example 
shows at least the possibility of a constitution, under which a series 
of incessant gratifications may be nothing better than a restless suc- 
cession of distress and disquietude ; and that such should be the con- 
stitution of our moral nature as to make a life of vice a life of vanity 
and cruel vexation, is strong experimental evidence of Him who 
ordained this constitution, that He hateth iniquity, that He loveth 
righteousness. 

13. But the peculiarity which we have been incidentally led to 
notice, is, in itself, pregnant with inference also. We should augur 
hopefully of the final issues of our moral constitution, as well as con- 
clude favourably of Him who hath ordained it — when we find its 
workings to be such, that, on the one hand, the feeling of kindness 
towards an individual object, not only survives, but is indefinitely 
strengthened by the acts of kindness ; and, on the other hand, that, 
not only does an act of revenge satiate and put an end to the feeling 
of revenge, but even, that certain acts of hostility towards the indi- 
vidual object of our hatred will make us relent from this hatred, and 
at length extinguish it altogether. May we not perceive in this 
economy a balance in point of tendency, and at length of ultimate 
effect on the side of virtue? May it not warrant the expectation, 
that, w T hile benevolence, that great conservative principle of being, 
has in it a principle conservative of itself as well as of its objects, the 
outbreakings of evil are but partial and temporary; and that the 
moral world, viewed as a progressive system and now only in its 
transition state, has been so constructed as to secure both the per- 
petuity of all the good affections and the indefinite expansion of 
ihem to new objects and over a larger and ever-widening territory I 
At all events, whatever reason there may be to fear, that, in the 
future arrangements of nature and providence, both virtue and vice 
will be capable of immortality — we mighl gather from what passes 
under our eyes, in this rudimental and incipient stage of human 
existence, that even with our presenl constitution virtue alone is 
capable of a blissful immortality. For malice and falsehood carry 
in them the seeds of their own wretchedness, it' not oi their own 
destruction. Only grant the soul to be imperishable j and if the 
character of the governor is to be gathered from the final issues of 
the government over which he presides — it says much for the moral 



MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS. 69 

character of Him who framed us, that, unless there be an utter re- 
versal of the nature which Himself has given, then, in respect to the 
power of conferring enjoyment or of maintaining the soul in its 
healthiest and happiest mood, it is righteousness alone which en- 
dureth for ever, and charity alone which never faileth. 

14. And beside taking account of the special enjoyments which 
attach to the special virtues, we might observe on the general state 
of that mind, which, under the consistent and comprehensive princi- 
ple of being or doing what it ought, studies rightly to acquit itself of 
all the moral obligations. Beside the perpetual feast of an approving 
conscience, and the constant recurrence of those particular gratifi- 
cations which attach to the indulgence of every good affection, — is 
it not quite obvious of every mind which places itself under a 
supreme regimen of morality, that then, it is in its best possible con- 
dition with regard to enjoyment : like a well strung instrument, in 
right and proper tone, because all its parts are put in right adjust- 
ment with each other 1 If conscience be indeed the superior faculty 
of our nature, then, every time it is cast down from this pre-eminence, 
there must be a sensation of painful dissonance; and the whole man 
feels out of sorts, as one unhinged or denaturalized. This perhaps 
is the main reason that a state of well-doing stands associated with 
a state of well-being ; and why the special virtue of temperance is 
not more closely associated with the health of the body, than the 
general habit of virtue is with a wholesome and well-conditioned 
state of the soul. There is then no derangement as it were in the 
system of our nature — all the powers, whether superior or subordi- 
nate, being in their right places, and all moving without discord and 
without dislocation. It were anticipating our argument, did we 
refer at present to the confidence and regard wherewith a virtuous 
man is surrounded in the world. We have not yet spoken of the 
adaptations to man's moral constitution from without, but only of 
the inward pleasures and satisfactions which are yielded in the work- 
ings of the constitution itself. And surely when we find it to have 
been so constructed and attuned by its maker, that, in all the move- 
ments of virtue there is a felt and grateful harmony, while a certain 
jarring sense of violence and discomposure ever attends upon the 
opposite — we cannot imagine how the moral character of that being 
who Himself devised this constitution and established all its tenden- 
cies, can be more clearly or convincingly read, than in phenomena 
like these. 

15. We have already said that the distinction so well established 
by Butler, between the object of our affection and its accompanying, 
nay, inseparable pleasure, was the most effectual argument that 
could be brought to bear against the selfish system of morals. The 
virtuous affection that is in a man's breast simply leads him to do 
what he ought ; and in that object he rests and terminates. Like 
every other affection, there must be a pleasure conjoined with the 



70 PLEASURE OF VIRTUOUS, AND MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS. 

prosecution of it ; and at last a full and final gratification in the at- 
tainment of its object. But the object must be distinct from the 
pleasure, which itself is founded on a prior suitableness between the 
mind and its object. When a man is actuated by a virtuous desire; 
it is the virtue itself that he is seeking, and not the gratification that 
is in it. His single object is to be or to do rightly — though, the 
more intent he is upon this object, the greater will, the greater must 
be his satisfaction if he succeed in it. Nevertheless, it is not the 
satisfaction which he is seeking ; it is the object which yields the 
satisfaction — the object too for its own sake, and not for the sake 
of its accompanying or its resulting enjoyment. Nay, the more 
strongly and therefore the more exclusively set upon virtue for its 
own sake; the less will he think of its enjoyment, and yet the greater 
will his actual enjoyment be. In other words, virtue, the more dis- 
interested it is, is the more prolific of happiness to him who follows 
it ; and then it is, that, when freed from all the taints of mercenary 
selfishness, it yields to its votary the most perfect and supreme enjoy- 
ment. Such is the constitution of our nature, that virtue loses not 
its disinterested character ; and yet man loses not his reward ; and 
the author of this constitution, He who hath ordained all its laws 
and its consequences, has given signal proof of His own supreme 
regard for virtue, and therefore, of the supreme virtue of His own 
character, in that He hath so framed the creatures of His will, as 
that their perfect goodness and perfect happiness are at one. Yet 
the union of these does not constitute their unity. The union is a 
contingent appointment of the Deity ; and so is at once the evidence 
and the effect of the goodness that is in His own nature. 

16. This then is our second general argument for the moral 
character of God, grounded on the moral constitution of man ; and 
prior, as yet, to any view of its adaptation to external nature. It is 
distinct from the first argument, as grounded on the phenomena of 
conscience, which assumes the office of judge within the breast, all 
whose decisions are on the side of benevolence and justice ; and 
which is ever armed with a certain power of enforcement, both in 
the pains of remorse and the pleasures of self-approbation. These, 
however, are distinct and ought to be distinguished from the direct 
pleasures of virtue in itself, and the direct pains of vice in itself, 
which form truly separate ingredients, on the one hand of a present 
and often very painful correction, on the other hand, of a present 
and very precious reward. 



71 
CHAPTER III. 

THIRD GENERAL ARGUMENT. 

The Power and Operation of Habit. 

1. We have as yet been occupied with what may be termed the 
instant sensations, wherewith morality is beset in the mind of man — 
with the voice of conscience which goes immediately before, or 
with the sentence whether of approval or condemnation, which 
comes immediately after it ; and latterly, with those states of feeling 
which are experienced at the moment when under the power of 
those affections, to which any moral designation, be it of virtue or 
vice, is applicable — the pleasure which there is in the very presence 
and contact of the one, the distaste, the bitterness which there is in 
the presence and contact of the other. 

2. These phenomena of juxtaposition, as they may be termed ; 
these contiguous antecedents and consequents of the moral and the 
immoral in man, speak strongly the purpose of Him who ordained 
our mental constitution, in having inserted there such a constant 
power of command and encouragement on the side of the former, 
and a like constant operation of checks and discouragement against 
the latter. But, perhaps, something more may be collected of the 
design and character of God, by stretching forward our observa- 
tion prospectively in the history of man, and so extending our re- 
gards to the more distant consequences of virtue or vice, both on 
the frame of his character and the state of his enjoyments. By study- 
ing these posterior results, we approximate our views towards the 
final issues of that administration under which we are placed. That 
defensive apparatus, wherewith the embryo seed of plants is guarded 
and protected, might indicate a special care or design in the pre- 
server of it. What that design particularly is comes to be clearly 
and certainly known, when, in the future history of the plant, we 
learn what the functions of the seed are, after it has come to matu- 
rity; and then observe, that, had it been suffered universally to 
perish, it would have led, — not to the mortality of the individual, for 
that is already an inevitable law, but to the extinction and mortality 
of the species. 

3. For tracing forward man's moral history, or the changes which 
take place in his moral state, it is necessary that we should advert 
to the influence of habit. Yet it is not properly the philosophy of 
habit wherewith our argument is concerned, but with the leading 
facts of its practical operation. A beneficial effect might still re- 
main an evidence of the divine goodness, by whatever steps it should 
be efficiently or physically brought about — its power in this way 
depending not on the question how it is, but on the fact that so it is. 



72 POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT. 

It were really, therefore, deviating from our own strict and pertinent 
line of inquiry, did we stop to discuss the philosophic theory of habit, 
or suspend our own independent reasoning till that theory was set- 
tled — beside most unwisely and unnecessarily attaching to our 
theme, all the discredit of an obscure or questionable speculation. 
It is with palpable and sure results both in the material and mental 
w r orld, more than with the recondite processes in either, that theism 
has chiefly to do ; and it by the former more than by the latter that 
the cause of theism is upholden. 

4. We might only observe, in passing, that the modification intro- 
duced by Dr. Thomas Brown into the theory of habit, was perhaps 
uncalled for, even for the accomplishment of his own purpose, which 
was to demonstrate that it required no peculiar or original law of 
the human constitution to account for its phenomena. He resolves, 
and we are disposed to think rightly, the whole operation of habit 
into the law of suggestion — only, he would extend that law to states 
of feelings, as well as to thoughts or to states of thoughts.* We are 
all aware that if two objects have been seen or thought of together 
on any former occasion, then the thought of one of them is apt to 
suggest the thought of the other, and the more apt the more fre- 
quently that the suggestion has taken place — insomuch, that, if the 
suggestion have taken place very often, we shall find it extremely 
difficult, if not impossible, to break the succession between the 
thought which suggests and the thought which is suggested by it. 
Now Dr. Brown has conceived it necessary to extend this principle 
to feelings as well as thoughts — insomuch, that, if on a former occa- 
sion a certain object have been followed up by a certain feeling, or 
even if one feeling have been followed up by another, then the 
thought of the object introduces the feeling, or the one feeling intro- 
duces the other feeling into the mind, on the same principle that 
thought introduces thought. Now we should rather be inclined to 
hold that thought introduces feeling, not in consequence of the same 
law of suggestion whereby thought introduces thought, but in virtue 
of the direct power which lies in the object of the thought to excite 
that feeling. When a voluptuous object awakens a voluptuous feel- 
ing, this is not by suggestion, but by a direct influence oi its own. 
When the picture of that voluptuous object awakens the same volup- 

* The following is the passage taken from his forty-third lecture, in which Dr. 
Brown seems to connect feeling with feeling by the same mental law which con- 
nects thought with thought. " To explain the influence of habit in increasing the 
tendency to certain actions I must remark — what I have already more than once 
repeated — that the suggesting influence which is usualh expressed in the phrase 
association of ideas, though that very improper phrase would seem to limit it to our 
ideas or conceptions only, and has unquestionably produced ft mistaken belief of 
this partial operation of a general influence — is not limited to those more than to 

any other states of mind, but occurs also with equal force in other feelings, which 
are not commonly termed ideas or conceptions; that our desires or other emotions, 
for example, may, like them, form a part of our trains of suggestion," Stc. Set 
another equally ambiguous passage in his sixty-fourth lecture. 



POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT. 73 

tuous feeling, we would not ascribe it to suggestion, but still put it 
down to the power of the object, whether presented or only repre- 
sented, to awaken certain emotions. And as little would we ascribe 
the excitement of the feeling to suggestion, but still to the direct and 
original power of the object — though it were pictured to us only in 
thought, instead of being pictured to us in visible imagery. In like 
manner, when the thought of an injur^ awakens in us anger, even 
as the injury itself did at the moment of its infliction, we should not 
ascribe this to that peculiar law which is termed the law of sugges- 
tion, and which undoubtedly connects thought with thought. But 
we should ascribe it wholly to that law which connects an object 
with its appropriate emotion — whether that object be present to the 
senses, or have only been recalled by the memory and is present to 
the thoughts. We sustain an injury, and we feel resentment in con- 
sequence, without, surely, the law of suggestion having had aught to 
do with the sequence. We see the aggressor afterwards, and our 
anger is revived against him, and with this particular succession the 
law of suggestion has certainly had to do — not, however, in the way 
of thought suggesting feeling, but only in the way of thought sug- 
gesting thought. In truth it is a succession of three terms. The 
sight of the man awakens a recollection of the injury; and the 
thought of the injury awakens the emotion. The first sequence, or 
that which obtains between the first and second term, is a pure in- 
stance of the suggestion of thought by thought, or, to speak in the 
old language, of the association of ideas. The second sequence, or 
that which obtains between the middle and last term, is still, Dr. 
Brown would say, an instance of suggestion, but of thought suggest- 
ing the feeling wherewith it was formerly accompanied. Whereas, 
in our apprehension, it is due, not to the law of suggestion but to the 
law which connects an object, whether present at the time or thought 
upon afterwards, with its counterpart emotion. Still the result is 
the same, however differently accounted for. One can think, surely, 
of the resentment which now occupies him, as well as he can think 
of a past resentment — indeed it is difficult to imagine how he can 
feel a resentment without thinking of it. Let some one thought, 
then, by the proper law of suggestion, have introduced the thought 
of an injury that had been done to us ; this second thought intro- 
duces the feeling of resentment, not by the law of suggestion, but by 
the law which relates an object, whether present or thought upon, to 
its appropriate emotion ; this emotion is thought upon, and not the 
emotion, but the thought of the emotion recalls the thought of the 
first emotion that was felt at the original infliction of the injury; and 
this thought again recalls to us the thought of the injury itself, and 
perhaps the thought of other or similar injuries, which, as at the 
first, excites anew the feeling of anger, but, at this particular step, 
by means of a law different from that of suggestion, even the law 
of our emotions, in virtue of which, certain objects, when present in 

7 



74 POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT. 

any way to the cognisance of the understanding, awaken certain 
sensibilities in the heart. It is thus that thoughts and feelings might 
reciprocally introduce each other, not by means of but one law of 
suggestion extending in common to them both, but by the inter- 
mingling of two laws in this repeating or circulating process, — even 
the law of suggestion, acting only upon the thoughts ; and the law of 
emotion, by which certain objects, when presented to the senses or 
to the memory, have the power to awaken certain correspondent 
emotions. We in this way get quit of the mysticism which attaches 
to the notion of mere feelings either suggesting or being suggested 
by other feelings, separately from thoughts — more especially when, 
by the association of thoughts or of ideas alone, and the direct power 
which lies in the objects of these ideas to awaken certain emotions, 
ail the phenomena are capable of being explained. A certain thought 
or object may suggest the thought of a former provocation ; this 
thought might excite a feeling of resentment ; the resentment, thus 
felt or thought upon, might send back the mind to a still more vivid 
impression of its original cause ; and this again might prolong or 
waken the resentment anew, and in greater freshness than before. 
The ultimate effect might be a fierce and fiery effervescence of 
irascible feeling. Yet not by the operation of one law, but of two 
distinct laws in the human constitution ; the first that, in virtue of 
which, thoughts suggest thoughts; the second that, in virtue of 
w T hich, the object thus thought upon awakens the emotion that is 
suited to it. 

5. But though for once we have thus adverted to the strict phi- 
losophy of the subject, it will be apparent, that, in this instance, it is 
of no practical necessity for the purposes of our argument; and it is 
truly the same in many other instances, where, if instead of reason- 
ing theologically on the palpable operations of the mechanism, we 
should reason scientifically on the modus operandi, we would run 
into really irrelevant discussions. The theme of our present chapter 
is the effect of Habit, in as far as these effects serve to indicate the 
design or character of Him who is the author of our mental consti- 
tution. It matters not to any conclusion of ours, by what recondite, 
or, it may be, yet undiscovered process these effects are brought 
about; and whether the common theory, or that of Dr. Brown, or 
that again as modified, and corrected by ourselves, is the just one. 
It is enough to know, that, if any given process of intermingled 
thought and feeling have been described by us once, there are laws 
at work, which, on the first step of that process again recurring, 
would incline us to describe the whole of the process over again j 
and with the greater power and certainty, the more frequently that 
process has been repeated. We are perfectly sure thai the more 
frequently any particular sequence between thought and thought 
may have occurred, the more readily will it recur; — SO that when 
once the first thought has entered the mind, we may all the more 



POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT. 75 

confidently reckon on its being followed up by the second. This 
we hold enough for explaining the ever recurring force and facility, 
wherewith feelings also will arise and be followed up by their in- 
dulgence — and that, just in proportion to the frequency wherewith in 
given circumstances they have been awakened and indulged formerly. 
In as far as the objects of gratification are the exciting causes which 
stimulate and awaken the desires of gratification ; then, any process 
which insures the presence and application of the causes, will also 
insure the fulfilment of the effects which result from them. If it be 
the presence or perception of the wine that stands before us which 
stirs up the appetite ; and if, instead of acting on the precept of look- 
ing not unto the wine when it is red, we continue to look till the 
appetite be so inflamed that the indulgence becomes inevitable — 
then, as we looked at it continuously when present, will we, by the 
law of suggestion, be apt to think of it continuously when absent. If 
the one continuity was not broken by any considerations of principle 
or prudence — so the less readily will the other continuity be broken 
in like manner. When we revisit the next social company, we shall 
probably resign ourselves to the very order of sensations that we did 
formerly ; and the more surely, the oftener that that order has already 
been described by us. And as the order of objects with their sensations 
when present, so is the order of thoughts with their desires when 
absent. This order forces itself upon the mind with a strength pro- 
portional to the frequency of its repetition ; and desires, w 7 hen not 
evaded by the mind shifting its attention aw T ay from the objects of 
them, can only be appeased by their indulgence. 

6. It is thus that he who enters on a career of vice, enters on a 
career of headlong degeneracy. If even for once we have de- 
scribed that process of thought and feeling, which leads, whether 
through the imagination or the senses, from the first presentation of 
a tempting object to a guilty indulgence — this of itself establishes a 
probability, that, on the recurrence of that object, we shall pass on- 
ward by the same steps to the same consummation. And it is a 
probability ever strengthening with every repetition of the process, 
till at length it advances towards the moral certainty of a helpless 
surrender to the tyranny of those evil passions, which we cannot re- 
sist, just because the will itself is in thraldom, and we choose not to 
resist them. It is thus that we might trace the progress of intempe- 
rance and licentiousness, and even of dishonesty, to whose respec- 
tive solicitations we have yielded at the first — till, by continuing to 
yield, we become the passive, the prostrate subjects of a force that 
is uncontrollable, only because we have seldom or never in good 
earnest tried to control it. It is not that we are struck of a sudden 
with moral impotency : but we are gradually benumbed into it. The 
power of temptation has not made instant seizure upon the faculties, 
or taken them by storm. It proceeds by an influence that is gently 
and almost insensibly progressive — just as progressive in truth, as 



76 POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT. 

the association between particular ideas is strengthened by the fre- 
quency of their succession. But even as that association may at 
length become inveterate, insomuch that when the first idea finds 
entry into the mind, we cannot withstand the importunity wherewith 
the second insists upon following it ; so might the moral habit become 
alike inveterate — thoughts succeeding thoughts, and urging onward 
their counterpart desires, in that wonted order, which had hitherto 
connected the beginning of a temptation with its full and final vic- 
tory. At each repetition, would we find it more difficult to break 
this order, or to lay an arrest upon it — till at length, as the fruit of 
this wretched regimen, its unhappy patient is lorded over by a 
power of moral evil, which possesses the whole man, and wields an 
irresistible or rather an unresisted ascendency over him. 

7. But this melancholy process, leading to a vicious indulgence, 
may be counteracted by an opposite process of resistance, though 
with far greater facility at the first — yet a facility ever augmenting, 
in proportion as the effectual resistance of temptation is persevered 
in. That balancing moment, at which pleasure would allure, and 
conscience is urging us to refrain, may be regarded as the point of 
departure or divergency, whence one or other of the two processes 
will take their commencement. Each of them consists in a particu- 
lar succession of ideas with their attendant feelings ; and whichever 
of them may happen to be described once, has, by the law of sug- 
gestion, the greater chance, in the same circumstances, of being de- 
scribed over again. Should the mind dwell on an object of allure- 
ment, and the considerations of principle not be entertained — it will 
pass onward from the first incitement to the final and guilty indul- 
gence by a series of stepping-stones, each of which will present itself 
more readily in future ; and with less chance of arrest or interrup- 
tion by the suggestions of conscience than before. But should these 
suggestions be admitted, and far more should they prevail — then, on 
the principle of association, will they be all the more apt to intervene, 
on the repetition of the same circumstances; and again break that 
line of continuity, ^vhich but for this intervention, would have led 
from a temptation to a turpitude or a crime. If on the occurrence 
of a temptation formerly, conscience did interpose, and represent the 
evil of a compliance, and so impress the man with a sense of obliga- 
tion, as led him to dismiss the fascinating object from the presence 
of his mind, or to hurry away from it — the likelihood is, that the re- 
currence of a similar temptation will suggest the same train of 
thoughts and feelings and load to the same beneficial result: and this 
is a likelihood ever increasing with every repetition o( the process. 
The train which would have terminated in a vicious Indulgence, is 

dispossessed by the train which conducts to a resolution and an act of 
virtuous self-denial. The thoughts which tend to awaken emotions 
and purposes on the side of duty find readier entrance into the mind ; 
and the thoughts which awaken and urge forward the desire of what 



POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT. 77 

is evil more readily give way. The positive force on the side of 
virtue is augmented, by every repetition of the train which leads to 
a virtuous determination. The resistance to this force on the side 
of vice is weakened, in proportion to the frequency wherewith that 
train of suggestions which would have led to a vicious indulgence, 
is broken and discomfited. It is thus that when one is successively 
resolute in his opposition to evil, the power of making the achieve- 
ment and the facility of the achievement itself are both upon the 
increase ; and virtue makes double gain to herself, by every sepa- 
rate conquest which she may have won. The humbler attainments 
of moral worth are first mastered and secured ; and the aspiring 
disciple may pass onward in a career that is quite indefinite to no- 
bler deeds and nobler sacrifices. 

8. And this law of habit when enlisted on the side of righteous- 
ness, not only strengthens and makes sure our resistance to vice, 
but facilitates the most arduous performances of virtue. The man 
whose thoughts, with the purposes and doings to which they lead, 
are at the bidding of conscience, will, by frequent repetition, at 
length describe the same track almost spontaneously — even as in 
physical education, things, laboriously learned at the first, come to 
be done at last without the feeling of an effort. And so, in moral 
education, every new achievement of principle smooths the way to 
future achievements of the same kind ; and the precious fruit or pur- 
chase of each moral victory is to set us on higher and firmer van- 
tage-ground for the conquests of principle in all time coming. He 
who resolutely bids away the suggestions of avarice, when they 
come into conflict with the incumbent generosity ; or the sugges- 
tions of voluptuousness, when they come into conflict with the in- 
cumbent self-denial ; or the suggestions of anger, when they come 
into conflict with the incumbent act of magnanimity and forbear- 
ance — will at length obtain, not a respite only, but a final deliverance 
from their intrusion. Conscience, the longer it has made way over 
the obstacles of selfishness and passion — the less will it give way to 
these adverse forces, themselves weakened by the repeated defeats 
which they have sustained in the warfare of moral discipline : Or, 
in other words, the oftener that conscience makes good the supre- 
macy which she claims — the greater would be the work of violence, 
and less the strength for its accomplishment, to cast her down from 
that station of practical guidance and command which of right be- 
longs to her. It is just because, in virtue of the law of suggestion, 
those trains of thought and feeling, which connect her first biddings 
with their final execution, are the less exposed at every new instance 
to be disturbed, and the more likely to be repeated over again, that 
every good principle is more strengthened by its exercise, and every 
good affection is more strengthened by its indulgence than before. 
The acts of virtue ripen into habits ; and the goodly and permanent 
result is, the formation or establishment of a virtuous character. 

7 # 



78 POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT. 

9. This then forms the subject of our third general argument 
The voice of authority within, bidding us to virtue ; and the imme- 
diate delights attendant on obedience, certainly, speak strongly for 
the moral character of that administration under which we are 
placed. But, by looking to posterior and permanent results, we have 
the advantage of viewing the system of that administration in pro- 
gress. Instead of the insulated acts, we are led to regard the 
abiding and the accumulating consequences — and by stretching 
forward our observation through larger intervals and to more dis- 
tant points in the moral history of men ; we are in likelier circum- 
stances for obtaining a glimpse of their final destination ; and so of 
seizing on this mighty and mysterious secret — the reigning policy 
of the divine government, whence we might collect the character 
of Him who hath ordained it. And surely, it is of prime importance 
to be noted in this examination, that by every act of virtue we 
become more powerful for. its service; and by every act of vice 
we become more helplessly its slaves. Or, in other w T ords, were 
these respective moral regimens fully developed into their respec- 
tive consummations, it would seem, as if by the one, we should 
be conducted to that state, where the faculty, within, which is felt 
to be the rightful, would also become the reigning sovereign, and 
then we should have the full enjoyment of all the harmony and 
happiness attendant upon virtue — whereas, by the other, those pas- 
sions of our nature felt to be inferior, would obtain the lawless as- 
cendency, and subject their wretched bondsmen to the turbulence, 
and the agony, and the sense of degradation, which, by the very 
constitution of our being, are inseparable from the reign of mural 
evil. 

10. We might not fully comprehend the design or meaning of 
a process, till we have seen the end of it. Had there been no 
death, the mystery of our present state might have been somewhat 
alleviated. We might then have seen, in bolder relief and indeli- 
ble character, the respective consummations of vice and virtue 
— perhaps the world partitioned into distinct moral territories, 
where the habit of many centuries had given fixture and establish- 
ment, first, to a society of the upright, now in the firm possession oi 
all goodness, as the well-earned result of that wholesome discipline 
through which they had passed ; and, second, to a society of the 
reprobate, now hardened in all iniquity, and abandoned to the vio- 
lence of evil passions no longer to be controlled and never to be 
eradicated. We might then nave witnessed the peace, the content- 
ment, and the universal confidence and love, the melody of soul, 
thai reigned in the dwellings of the righteous; ami contrasted these 
with the disquietudes, the strifes, the foil and fierce collisions of in- 
justice ;m<] mutual disdain and hate implacable, the fanatic bac- 
chanalian excesses with their dreary intervals of remorse and lassi- 
tude, which kept the other region in perpetual anarchy, and which, 



POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT. 79 

constituted as we are, must trouble or dry up all the well-springs of 
enjoyment, whether in the hearts of individuals or in the bosom of 
families. We could have been at no loss, to have divined, from the 
history and state of such a world, the policy of its ruler. We 
should have recognised in that peculiar economy, by which every act 
whether of virtue or vice, made its performance still more virtuous 
or more vicious than before, a moral remuneration on the one hand 
and a moral penalty on the other — with an enhancement of all the 
consequences, whether good or evil, which flowed from each of 
them. We could not have mistaken the purposes and mind of the 
Diety — when we saw thus palpably, and through the demonstrations 
of experience, the ultimate effects of these respective processes ; 
and, in this total diversity of character, with a like total diversity 
of condition, were made to perceive, that righteousness was its own 
eternal reward, and that wickedness was followed up, and that for 
ever, with the bitter fruit of its own ways. 

11. Death so far intercepts the view of this result, that it is 
not here the object of sight or of experience. Still, however, it 
remains the object of our likely anticipation. The truth is, that the 
process w T hich we are now contemplating, the process by which 
character is formed and strengthened and perpetuated, suggests one 
of the strongest arguments within the compass of the light of nature, 
for the immortality of the soul. In the system of the world we 
behold so many adaptations, not only between the faculties of sen- 
tient beings, and their counterpart objects in external nature ; but 
between every historical progression in nature, and a fulfilment of 
corresponding interest or magnitude which it ultimately lands in — 
that we cannot believe of man's moral history, as if it terminated in 
death. More especially when we think of the virtuous character, 
how laboriously it is reared, and how slowly it advances to per- 
fection ; but, at length, how indefinite its capabilities of power and of 
enjoyment are, after this education of habits has been completed — 
it seems like the breach of a great and general analogy, if man is 
to be suddenly arrested on his way to the magnificent result, for 
which it might well be deemed that the whole of his life was but a 
preparation ; having just reached the full capacity of an enjoyment, 
of which he had only been permitted, in this evanescent scene, a few 
brief and passing foretastes. It were like the infliction of a violence 
on the continuity of things, of which we behold no similar example, 
if a being so gifted were thus left to perish in the full maturity of 
his powers and moral acquisitions. The very eminence that he 
has won, we naturally look upon as the guarantee and the precur- 
sor of some great enlargement beyond it — warranting the hope, 
therefore, that Death but transforms without destroying him, or, 
that the present is only the embryo or rudimental state, the final 
developement of which is in another and future state of existence. 

12. This is not the right place for a full exposition of this argu- 
ment. We might only observe, that there is an evidence of man's 



80 POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT. 

immortality, in the moral state and history of the bad upon earth, as 
well as of the good. The truth is, that nature's most vivid antici- 
pations of a conscious futurity on the other side of death, are the 
forebodings of guilty fear, not the bright anticipations of confident 
and rejoicing hope. We speak not merely of the unredressed 
wrongs inflicted by the evil upon the righteous, and which seem to 
demand an afterplace of reparation and vengeance. Beside those 
unsettled questions between man and man, which death breaks oft* 
at the middle, and for the adjustment of which one feels as if it were 
the cry of eternal justice that there should be a reckoning after- 
wards — besides these, there is felt, more directly and vividly still, 
the sense of a )^et unsettled controversy, between the sinner and the 
God whom he has offended. The notion of immortality is far more 
powerfully and habitually suggested by the perpetual hauntings or 
misgivings of this sort of undefined terror, by the dread of a coming 
penalty — rather than by the consciousness of merit, or of a yet un- 
satisfied claim to a well-earned reward. Nor is the argument at all 
lessened by that observed phenomenon in the history of guilt, the 
decay of conscience ; a hebetude, if it may be so termed, of the 
moral sensibilities, which keeps pace with the growth of a man's 
wickedness, and, at times, becomes quite inveterate towards the ter- 
mination of his mortal career. The very torpor and tranquillity of 
such a state, would only appear all the more emphatically to tell, 
that a day of account is yet to come, when, instead of rioting, as 
heretofore, in the impunity of a hardihood that shields him alike from 
reproach and fear, conscience will at length re-awaken to upbraid 
him for his misdoings ; at once the assertor of its own cause, and 
the executioner of its own sentence. And even the most desperate 
in crime, do experience, at times, such gleams and resuscitations of 
moral light, as themselves feel to be the precursors of a revelation 
still more tremendous — when their own conscience, fully let loose 
upon them, shall, in the hands of an angry God, be a minister of 
fiercest vengeance. Certain it is, that, if death, instead of an entire 
annihilation, be but a removal to another and a different scene of 
existence, we see in this, when combined with the known laws and 
processes of the mind, the possibility, at least, of such a consumma- 
tion. There is much in the business, and entertainments, and con- 
verse, and day-light of that urgent and obtruding world by which 
we are surrounded, to carry off the attention o( the mind from its 
own guiltiness, and so, to suspend the agony, which when thrown 
back upon itself and dissevered from all its objects of gratification, 
will be felt, without mitigation and without respite, in the hmy 
whirl of life, the mind, drawn upon in all directions, can find, out- 
wardly and abroad, the relief of a constant diversion from the misery 
of its own internal processes. Bu1 a slight change in its locality or 
its circumstances, would deliver it up to the full burthen and agony 
ol* these; nor can we imagine a more intense and intolerable 
wretchedness, than that which would ensue, simply by rescinding 



POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT. 81 

the connexion which obtains in this world between a depraved mind 
and its external means of gratification — when, forced inwardly on 
its own haunted tenement, it met with nothing there but revenge un- 
satiated, and raging appetites, that never rest from their unappeased 
fermentation ; and withal, to this perpetual sense of want, a pungent 
and pervading sense of worthlessness. It is the constant testimony 
of criminals, that, in the horrors and the tedium of solitary impri- 
sonment, they undergo the most appalling of all penalties — a penalty, 
therefore, made up of moral elements alone ; as neither pain, nor 
hunger, nor sickness, necessarily forms any of its ingredients. It 
strikingly demonstrates the character of Him who so constructed 
our moral nature, that from the workings of its mechanism alone, 
there should be evolved a suffering so tremendous on the children of 
iniquity, insomuch that a sinner meets with sorest vengeance when 
simply left to the fruit of his own ways — whether by the death 
which carries his disembodied spirit to its Tartarus ; or by a resur- 
rection to another scene of existence, where, in full possession of his 
earthly habits and earthly passions, he is nevertheless doomed to 
everlasting separation from their present counterpart and earthly 
enjoyments. 

13. There is a distinction sometimes made between the natural 
and arbitrary rewards of virtue, or between the natural a*nd arbi- 
trary punishments of vice. The arbitrary is exemplified in the enact- 
ments of human law ; there in general being no natural or necessary 
connexion between the crimes which it denounces, and the penalties 
which it ordains for them — as between the fine, or the imprisonment, 
or the death, upon the one hand ; and the act of violence, whether 
more or less outrageous, upon the other. The natural again is ex- 
emplified in the workings of the human constitution ; there being a 
connexion, in necessity and nature, between the temper which 
prompted the act of violence, and the wretchedness which it inflicts 
on him who is the unhappy subject, in his own bosom, of its fierce 
and wrestless agitations. It is thus that not only is virtue termed 
its own rew T ard, but vice its own greatest plague or self-tormentor. 
We have no information of the arbitrary rewards or punishments 
in a future state, but from revelation alone. But of the natural, 
we have only to suppose, that the existing constitution of man, and 
his existing habits, shall be borne with him to the land of eternity ; 
and we may inform ourselves now of these, by the experience of 
our own felt and familiar nature. Our own experience can tell that 
the native delights of virtue, unaided by any high physical gratifica- 
tions, and only if not disturbed by grievous physical annoyances, 
were enough of themselves to constitute an elysium of pure and 
perennial happiness: and again, that the native agonies of vice, 
unaided by any inflictions of physical suffering, and only if unalle- 
viated by a perpetual round of physical enjoyments, were enough of 
themselves to constitute a dire and dreadful Pandemonium. Thev 



82 ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO 

are not judicially awarded, but result from the workings of that 
constitution which God hath given to us"; and they speak as deci- 
sively the purpose and character of Him who is the author of that 
constitution — as would any code of jurisprudence proclaimed from 
the sanctuary of heaven, and which assigned to virtue on the one 
hand, the honours and rewards of a blissful immortality, to vice 
on the other, a place of anguish among the outcasts of a fiery con- 
demnation. 



CHAPTER IV. 

On the General Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral Con- 
stitution of Man. 

1. It needs but a cursory observation of life to be made sensible, 
that man has not been endowed with a conscience, without, at the 
same time, being placed in a theatre which afforded the most abun- 
dant scope and occasion for its exercise. The truth is, that, in the 
multitude of fellow-beings by whom he is surrounded, and in the 
manifold variety of his social and family relations, there is a per- 
petual call on his sense of right and wrong — insomuch, that to the 
doings of every hour throughout his waking existence, one or other 
of these moral designations is applicable. It might have been 
stigmatized as the example of a mal-adjustment in the circumstances 
of our species, had man been provided with a waste feeling or a 
waste faculty, which remained dormant and unemployed from the 
want of counterpart objects that were suited to it. The wisdom of 
God admits of a glorious vindication against any such charge in the 
physical department of our nature, where the objective and sub- 
jective have been made so marvellously to harmonise with each 
other; there being, in the material creation, sights of infinitely varied 
loveliness, and sounds of as varied melody, and many thousand 
tastes and odours of exquisite gratification, and distinctions innu- 
merable of toucli and feeling, to meet the whole compass and 
diversity of the human senses — multiplying without end. both the 
notice that we receive from external things, and the enjoyments 
that we derive from them. And as little in the moral department o( 
our nature, is any of its faculties, and more" especially the great and 
master faculty of all, left to [anguish from the want o( occupation. 
The whole of life, in fact, is crowded with opportunities lor its em- 
ployment — or, rather, instead »>f being represented as the subject of 
so many distinct and ever-recurring calls, conscience may well be 
represented as the constant guide and guardian of human life: and. 



THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 83 

for the right discharge of this high office, as being kept on the alert 
perpetually. The creature on whom conscience hath laid the 
obligation of refraining from all mischief, and rendering to society 
all possible good, lives under a responsibility which never for a sin- 
gle moment is suspended. He may be said to possess a continuity 
of moral being ; and morality whether of a good or evil hue, tinges 
the whole current of his history. It is of a thing of constancy as 
well as a thing of frequency — for, even when not carried forth into 
action, it is not dormant ; but possesses the mind in the form of a 
cherished purpose or cherished principle, or, as the Romans ex- 
pressed it, of a perpetual will either to that which is good or eviL 
But over and above this, the calls to action are innumerable. In 
the wants of others ; in their powers of enjoyment ; in their claims 
on our equity, our protection, or our kindness ; in the various open- 
ings and walks of usefulness ; in the services which even the hum- 
blest might render to those of their own family, or household, or 
country ; in the application, of that comprehensive precept, to do 
good unto all men as we have opportunity — we behold a prodigious 
number and diversity of occasions for the exercise of moral prin- 
ciple. It is possible that the lessons of a school may not be arduous 
enough nor diversified enough for the capacity of a learner. But 
this cannot be affirmed of that school of discipline, alike arduous and 
unremitting, to which the great author of our being hath introduced 
us. Along with the moral capacity by which He hath endowed us, 
He hath provided a richly furnished gymnasium for its exercises 
and its trials — where we may earn, if not the triumphs of virtue, at 
least some delicious foretastes of that full and final blessedness for 
which the scholarship of human life, with its manifold engagements 
and duties, is so obviously fitted to prepare us. 

2. But let us now briefly state the adaptation of external nature 
to the moral constitution of man, with a reference to that three-fold 
generality which w r e have already expounded. We have spoken of 
the supremacy of conscience, and of the inherent pleasures and pains 
of virtue and vice, and of the law and operation of habit — as form- 
ing three distinct arguments for the moral goodness of Him, who 
hath so constructed our nature, that by its workings alone, man 
should be so clearly and powerfully warned to a life of righteousness 
— should in the native and immediate joys of rectitude, earn so pre- 
cious a reward — and, finally, should be led onward to such a state 
of character, in respect of its confirmed good or confirmed evil, as 
to afford one of the likeliestprognostications which nature offers to our 
view of an immortality beyond the grave, where we shall abundantly 
reap the consequence of our present doings, in either the happiness 
of established virtue or the utter wretchedness and woe of our then 
inveterate depravity. But hitherto we have viewed this nature of 
man, rather as an individual and insulated constitution, than as a 
mechanism actuated upon by any forces or influences from without. 



84 ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO 

It is in this latter aspect that we are henceforth to regard it ; and 
now only it is that we enter on the proper theme of our volume, or 
that the adaptations of the objective to the subjective begin to open 
upon us. It will still be recollected, however,* that in our view of 
external nature, we comprehend, not merely all that is external to 
the world of mind — for this would have restricted us to the con- 
sideration of those reciprocal actings which take place between 
mind and matter. We further comprehend all that is external to 
one individual mind, and therefore the other minds which are around 
it; and so we have appropriated, as forming a part of our legitimate 
subject, the actings and reactings that take place between man and 
man in society. 

3. And first, in regard to the power and sensibility of conscience, 
there is a most important influence brought to bear on each indi- 
vidual possessor of this faculty from without, and by his fellow-men. 
It will help us to understand it aright, if we reflect on a felt and 
familiar experience of all men — even the effect of a very slight no- 
tice, often of a single word from one of our companions, to recall 
some past scene or transaction of our lives, which had long vanished 
from our remembrance ; and would, but for this reawakening, have 
remained in deep oblivion to the end of our days. The phenomenon 
can easily be explained by the laws of suggestion. Our wonted 
trains of thought might never have conducted the mind to any 
thought or recollection of the event in question — whereas, on the 
occurrence of even a very partial intimation, all the associated cir- 
cumstances come into vivid recognition; and we are transported 
back again to the departed realities of former years, that had lain 
extinct within us for so long a period, and might have been extinct 
for ever, if not lighted up again by an extraneous application. How 
many are the days since early boyhood, of which not one trace or 
vestige now abides upon the memory. Yet perhaps there is not one 
of these days, the history of which could not be recalled, by means 
of some such external or foreign help to the remembrance of it 
Let us imagine, for example, that a daily companion had, unknown 
to us, kept a minute and statistical journal of all the events we per- 
sonally shared in ; and the likelihood is, that, if permitted to the 
perusal of this document, even after the lapse of half a lifetime, our 
memory would depone to many thousand events which had else 
escaped, into utter and irrecoverable forgetfulness. It is certainly 
remarkable, that, on some brief utterance by another, the stories *.'( 
former days should suddenly reappear, as if in illumined characters, 
on the tablet from which they had so totally faded; that the men- 
tion of a single circumstance, it" only the link of a train, should con- 
jure to life again a whole host of sleeping recollections? And so. in 
each of our fellow-men, might we have a remembrancer, who can 

• See Introductory Chapter, 1, 2, 3. 



THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 85 

vivify our consciousness anew, respecting scenes and transactions 
of our former history which had long gone by; and which, after 
having vanished once from a solitary mind left to its own processes, 
would have vanished everlastingly. 

4. It is thus, that, not only can one man make instant translation 
of his own memory ; but on certain subjects, he can even make in- 
stant translation of his own intelligence into the mind of another. 
A shrewd discerner of the heart, when laying upon its heretofore 
unrevealed mysteries, makes mention of things which at the moment 
we feel to be novelties ; but which, almost at the same moment, are 
felt and recognised by us as truths — and that, not because we re- 
ceive them upon this authority, but on the independent view that 
ourselves have of their own evidence. His utterance, in fact, has 
evoked from the cell of their imprisonment, remembrances, which 
but for him, might never have been awakened ; and which, when 
thus summoned into existence, are so many vouchers for the perfect 
wisdom and truth of what he tells. A thousand peculiarities of life 
and character, till then unnoticed, are no sooner heard by us, al- 
though for the first time in our lives, than they shine before the 
mind's eye, in the light of a satisfying demonstration. And the rea- 
son is, that the materials of their proof have been actually stored up 
within us, by the history and experience of former years, though in 
chambers of forge tfulness — whence, however, they are quickly and 
vividly called forth, as if with the power of a talisman, by the voice 
of him, who no sooner announces his proposition, than he suggests 
the by-gone recollections of our own which serve to confirm it. 
The pages of the novelist, or the preacher, or the moral essayist, 
though all of them should deal in statements alone, without the 
formal allegation of evidence, may be informed throughout with 
evidence, notwithstanding ; and that, because each of them speaks 
to the consciousness of his readers, unlocking a treasury of latent 
recollections, which no sooner start again into being, than they 
become witnesses for the sagacity and admirable sense of him with 
whom all this luminous and satisfying converse is held. It is like 
the holding up of a mirror, or the response of an echo to a voice. 
What the author discovers, the reader promptly and presently dis- 
cerns. The one utters new things; but that light of immediate 
manifestation in which the other beholds them, is struck out of old 
materials which himself too had long since appropriated, but laid up 
in a dormitory, where they might have slumbered for ever — had it 
not been for that voice which charmed them anew into life and con- 
sciousness. This is the only way in which the instant recognition 
of truths before unheard of and unknown can possibly be explained. 
It is because their evidence lies enveloped in the reminiscences of 
other days, which had long passed into oblivion ; but are again pre- 
sented to the notice of the mind by the power of association. 

5. This is properly a case of intellectual rather than of moral 

8 



86 ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO 

adaptation ; and is only now adverted to for the purpose of illustra- 
tion. For a decayed conscience is susceptible of like resuscitation 
with a decayed memory. In treating of the effects of habit, we briefly 
noticed*' the gradual weakening of conscience, as the indulgences of 
vice were persisted in. Its remonstrances, however ineffectual, may, 
at the first, have had a part in that train of thought and feeling, 
which commences with a temptation, and is consummated in guilt; 
but in proportion to the frequency, wherewith the voice of conscience 
is hushed, or overborne, or refused entertainment by the mind, in 
that proportion does it lift a feebler and a fainter voice afterwards — 
till at length it may come to be unheard; and any suggestions from 
this faculty may either pass unheeded, or perhaps drop out of the 
train altogether. It is thus that many a foul or horrid immorality 
may come at length to be perpetrated without the sense or feeling of 
its enormity. Conscience, with the repeated stiflings it has under- 
gone, may, as if on the eve of extinction, have ceased from its ex- 
ercises. This moral insensibility forms, in truth, one main constituent 
in the hardihood of crime. The conscience is cradled into a state 
of stupefaction ; and the criminal, now a desperado in guilt, may 
prosecute his secret depravities, with no relentings from within, and 
no other dread upon his spirit, than that of discovery by his fellow 
men. 

6. And it is on the event of such discovery, that we meet with the 
phenomenon in question. When that guilt, to which he had himself 
become so profoundly insensible, is at length beheld in the light of 
other minds — it is then that the scales are made to fall from the eyes 
of the offender ; and he, as if suddenly awoke from lethargy, stands 
aghast before the spectacle of his own worthlessness. It is not the 
shame of detection, nor the fear of its consequences, which forms 
the whole of this distress. These may aggravate the suffering; but 
they do not altogether compose it — for often besides, is there a resur- 
rection of the moral sensibilities within the bosom of the unhappy 
criminal, as if relumed at the touch of sympathy, with the pro- 
nounced judgments and feelings of other men. When their unper- 
verted and unwarped consciences, because free from the delusions 
which encompass his own, give forth a righteous sentence — they 
enlist his conscience upon their side, which then reasserts its power, 
and again speaks to him in a voice of thunder. When that con- 
tinuous train between the first excitement of some guilty passion. 
and its final gratification, from which the suggestions of the moral 
faculty had been so carefully excluded, is thus arrested and broken — 
then dot's conscience, as if emancipated from a spell, at times rc- 
cover from the infatuation which held it: and utter reproaches of 
its own, more terrible to the sinner's heart, than all the execrations 
Of general society. And whatever shall forcibly terminate the guilty 

• Sec Chap. iii. 6 of this Section. 



THE MORAL CONSTITUTION" OF MAN". 87 

indulgence, may, by interrupting the accustomed series of thoughts 
and purposes and passions, also dissipate and put an end to the in- 
veteracy of this moral or spiritual blindness. The confinement of a 
prison-house may do it. The confinement of a death-bed may do 
it. And accordingly, on these occasions, does conscience, after an 
interval it would seem, not of death but only of suspended animation, 
come forth with the might of an avenger, and make emphatic re- 
presentation of her wrongs. 

7. But this influence which we have attempted to exhibit in bold 
relief, by means of rare and strong exemplification, is in busy and 
perpetual operation throughout society — and that, more to prevent 
crime than to punish it ; rather, to maintain the conscience in fresh- 
ness and integrity, than to reanimate it from a state of decay, or to 
recall its aberrations. Indeed its restorative efficacy, though far 
more striking, is not so habitual, nor in the whole amount so salu- 
tary, as its counteractive efficacy. The truth is, that we cannot 
frequent the companionships of human life, without observing the 
constant circulation and reciprocal play of the moral judgments 
among men — with whom there is not a more favourite or familiar 
exercise, than that of discussing the conduct and pronouncing on 
the deserts of each other. It is thus that every individual, liable in 
his own case to be misled or blinded by the partialities of interest 
and passion, is placed under the observation and guardianship of his 
fellows — who, exempted from his personal or particular bias, give 
forth a righteous sentence and cause it to be heard. A pure moral 
light is by this means kept up in society, composed of men whose 
thoughts are ever employed in 'accusing or else excusing one an- 
other' — so that every individual conscience receives an impulse and 
a direction from sympathy with the consciences around it. We are 
aware that the love of applause intervenes at this point as a distinct 
and auxiliary influence. But the primary influence is a moral one. 
Each man lives under a consciousness of the vigilant and discerning 
witnesses who are on every side of him ; and his conscience, kept 
in accordance with theirs, acts both more powerfully and more 
purely, than if left to the decay and the self-deception of its own 
withering solitude. The lamp which might have waxed dim by 
itself, revives its fading lustre, by contact and communication with 
those which burn more brightly in other bosoms than its own; and 
this law of interchange between mind and mind, forms an important 
adaptation in the mechanism of human society. 

&. But, to revert for a moment to the revival of conscience after 
that its sensibilities had become torpid for a season ; and they are 
quickened anew, as if by sympathy, with the moral judgments of 
other men. This phenomenon of conscience seems to afford another 
glimpse or indication of futurity. It at least tells with what facility 
that Being, who hath all the resources of infinity at command, could, 
and that by an operation purely mental, inflict the vengeance of a 



ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO 

l he most exquisite, on the children of disobedience. He 
_ ^uiy to re-open the fountains of memory and conscience ; and 
this will of itself cause distillation within the soul of the waters of bit- 
terness. And if in the voice of enrthly remembrancers and earthly 
judges, we observe such a power of re-awakening — we might infer, 
not the possibility alone, but the extreme likelihood of a far more vivid 
re-awakening, when the offended lawgiver himself takes the judgment 
into His own hands. If the rebuke of human tongues and human 
eyes be of such force to revive the sleeping agony within us, what 
may we not feel, w 7 hen the adverse sentence is pronounced against 
us from the throne of God, and in the midst of a universal theatre? 
If, in this our little day, the condemnation is felt to be insupportable, 
that twinkles upon us from the thousand secondary and subordinate 
lustres by which we are surrounded — what must it be, when He, by 
whose hand they have all been lighted up, turns towards us the strength 
of his own countenance ; and, with His look of reprobation sends 
forth trouble and dismay over the hosts of the rebellious.* 

9. But besides the pleasures and pains of conscience, there is in 
the very taste and feeling of moral qualities, a pleasure or a pain. 
This formed our second general argument in favour of God's 
righteous administration ; and our mental constitution, even when 
viewed singly, furnishes sufficient materials on which to build it. 
But the argument is greatly strengthened and enhanced by the 
adaptation to that constitution of external nature, more especially as 
exemplified in the reciprocal influences which take place between 
mind and mind in society ; for the effects of this adaptation is to 
multiply both the pleasures of virtue and the sufferings of vice. The 
first, the original pleasure, is that which is felt by the virtuous man 
himself; as, for example, by the benevolent, in the very sense and 
feeling of that kindness whereby his heart is actuated. The second 
is felt by him who is the object of this kindness — for merely in the 
conscious possession of another's good-will, there is a great and dis- 
tinct enjoyment. And then the manifested kindness of the former 
awakens gratitude, in the bosom of the latter ; and this, too, is a 
highly pleasurable emotion. And lastly, gratitude sends back a de- 
licious incense to the benefactor who awakened it. By the purely 
mental interchange of these affections, there is generated a prodi- 
gious amount of happiness; and that, altogether independent o( the 
gratifications which are yielded by the material gifts o( liberality on 
the one hand, or by the material services of gratitude on the other. 
Insomuch, that we have only to imagine a reign o( perfect virtue: 
and then, in spite of the physical ills which essentially and inevitably 

* Dr. Abercromby, in his interesting work on the intellectual powers, states 
some remarkable oases of resuscitated and enlarged memory, which remind one of 

the explanation given by Mr. Coleridge of the opening of the hooks in the day of 

judgment, it is on the opening of the book of conscience that the sinner is made 

to feel the truth and righteousness of his condemnation. 



THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 89 

attach to our condition, we should feel as if we had approximated 
very nearly to a state of perfect enjoyment among men — or, in other 
words, that the bliss of paradise would be almost fully realized upon 
earth, were but the moral graces and charities of paradise firmly 
established there, and in full operation. Let there be honest and 
universal good-will in every bosom, and this be responded to from 
all who are the objects of it by an honest gratitude back again ; let 
kindness, in all its various effects and manifestations, pass and repass 
from one heart and countenance to another ; let there be a universal 
courteousness in our streets, and let fidelity and affection and all the 
domestic virtues take up their secure and lasting abode in every 
family ; let the succour and sympathy of a willing neighbourhood 
be ever in readiness to meet and to overpass all the want and 
wretchedness to which humanity is liable ; let truth, and honour, 
and inviolable friendship between man and man, banish all treachery 
and injustice from the world ; in the walks of merchandise, let an 
unfailing integrity on the one side, have the homage done to it of 
unbounded confidence on the other, insomuch, that each man repos- 
ing with conscious safety on the uprightness and attachment of his 
fellow, and withal rejoicing as much in the prosperity of an acquaint- 
ance, as he should in his own, there would come to be no place for 
the harassments and the heart-burnings of mutual suspicion or 
resentment or envy : who does not see, in the state of a society thus 
constituted and thus harmonised, the palpable evidence of a nature 
so framed, that the happiness of the world and the righteosness of 
the world kept pace the one with the other ? And it is all important 
to remark of this happiness, that, in respect both to quality and 
amount, it mainly consists of moral elements — so that while every 
giver who feels as he ought, experiences a delight in the exercise of 
generosity which rewards him a hundred-fold for all its sacrifices ; 
every receiver who feels as he ought, rejoices infinitely more in the 
sense of the benefactor's kindness, than in the physical gratification 
or fruit of the benefactor's liberality. It is saying much for the 
virtuousness of Him who hath so moulded and so organized the 
spirit of man, that, apart from sense and from all its satisfactions, 
but from the etherial play of the good affections alone, the highest 
felicity of our nature should be generated ; that, simply by the inter- 
change of cordiality between man and man, and one benevolent 
emotion re-echoing to another, there should be yielded to human 
hearts, so much of the truth and substance of real enjoyment — so 
that did justice, and charity, and holiness, descend from heaven to 
earth, taking full and universal possession of our species, the happi- 
ness of heaven would be sure to descend along with them. Could 
any world be pointed out, where the universality and reign of vice 
effected the same state of blissful and secure enjoyment that virtue 
would in ours — we should infer that he was the patron and the 
friend of vice, who had dominion over it. But when assured, or* 

8* 



90 ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO 

the experience we have of our actual nature, that in the world we 
occupy, a perfect morality would, but for certain physical calami- 
ties, be the harbinger of a perfect enjoyment — we regard this as 
an incontestable evidence for the moral goodness of our own actual 
Deity. 

10. And in such an argument as ours, although the main beati- 
tudes of virtue are of a moral and spiritual character, its subser- 
viency to the physical enjoyments of life ought not to be overlooked, 
though, perhaps, too obvious to be dwelt upon. The most palpable 
of these subserviencies is the effect of benevolence in diffusing abun- 
dance among the needy, and so alleviating the ills of their destitu- 
tion. This is so very patent as not to require being expatiated on. 
Yet we might notice here one important adaptation, connected with 
the exercise of this morality — realized but in part, so long as virtue 
has only a partial occupation in society ; but destined, we hope, to 
receive its entire and beautiful accomplishment, when virtue shall 
have become universal. It is well known that certain collateral but 
very serious mischiefs attend the exercise of a profuse and capri- 
cious and indiscriminate charity ; that it may, in fact, augment and 
aggravate the indigence which it tries to relieve, beside working a 
moral deterioration among the humbler classes, by ministering to the 
reckless improvidence of the dissipated and the idle ; an operation 
alike injurious to the physical comfort of the one party, and to the 
moral comfort of the other. These effects are inevitable, so long as 
the indiscriminate benevolence of the rich meets with an indefinite 
selfishness and rapacity on the part of the poor. But this evil will 
be mitigated and at length done away, with the growth of principle 
among mankind ; and more especially, when, instead of being con- 
fined to one of these classes, it is partitioned among both. Let the 
wealthy be as generous as they ought in their doings, and the poor 
be as moderate as they ought in their expectations and desires ; and 
then will that problem, which has so baffled the politicians and econo- 
mists of England, find its own spontaneous, while, at the same time, 
its best adjustment. Let an exuberant yet well directed liberality on 
the one side, come into encounter, instead of a sordid and insatiable 
appetency, with the recoil of delicacy and self-respect upon the other. 
and the noble independence of men who will work with their own 
hands rather than be burthensome ; and then will the benefactions of 
the wealthy, and the wants of the indigent, not only meet but own- 
pass. The willingness of the one party to give, will exceed the wil- 
lingness of the other to receive; and an evil which threatens to rend 
society asunder, and which law in her attempts to remedy has only 
exasperated, will at length give way before the omnipotence of moral 
causes. This, as being one of many specimens, tells most signifi- 
cantly that man was made for virtue, or that this was the purpose 
of God in making him — when we find, that through no other medium 
than the morality of the people, can the sorest distempers o( society 



THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 91 

be healed. The impotence of human wisdom, and of every politi- 
cal expedient which this wisdom can devise for the well-being of a 
stale, when virtue languishes among the people, is one of the strong- 
est proofs which experience affords, that virtue was the design of 
our creation. And we know not how more emphatic demonstra- 
tion can be given of a virtuous Deity, than when we find society to 
have been so constructed by His hands, that virtue forms the great 
alternative on which the secure or lasting prosperity of a common- 
wealth is hinged — so that for any aggregate of human beings to be 
right physically and right economically, it is the indispensable, while 
at the same time the all effectual condition, that they should be right 
morally. 

11. "Nothing can be more illustrative of the character of God, or 
more decisive of the question, whether His preference is for univer- 
sal virtue or for universal vice in the world, than to consider the 
effect of each on the well-being of human society — even that society 
which He did Himself ordain, and whose mechanism is the contri- 
vance of His own intellect, and the work of His own hands. It may 
not be easy to explain the origin of that moral derangement into 
which the species has actually fallen ; but it affords no obscure or 
uncertain indication of what the species was principally made for, 
when we picture to ourselves the difference between a common- 
wealth of vice and a commonwealth of virtue. We have already 
said enough on the obvious connexion which obtains between the 
righteousness of a nation and the happiness of its families ; and it 
were superfluous to dilate on the equally obvious connexion which 
obtains between a state of general depravity, and a state of general 
wretchedness and disorder. And the counterpart observation holds 
true, that, as the beatitudes of the one condition, so the sufferings of 
the other are chiefly made up of moral elements. If, in the former, 
there be a more precious and heartfelt enjoyment in the possession 
of another's kindness, than in all the material gifts and services to 
which that kindness has prompted him — so in the latter, may it often 
happen, that the agony arising from simple consciousness of another's 
malignity, will greatly exceed any physical hurt, whether in person 
or property, that we ever shall sustain from him. A loss that we 
suffer from the dishonesty of another is far more severely felt, than a 
ten-fold loss occasioned by accident or misfortune — or, in other 
words, we find the moral provocation to be greatly more pungent 
and intolerable than the physical calamity. So that beside the ma- 
terial damage, too palpable to be insisted on at any length, which 
vice and violence inflict upon society, there should be taken into ac- 
count the soreness of spirit, the purely mental distress and disquietude 
which follow in their train — of which we have already seen, how 
much is engendered even in the workings of one individual mind ; 
but susceptible of being inflamed to a degree indefinitely higher, by 
the reciprocal working of minds, all of them hating and all hateful 
to each other. In this mere antipathy of the heart, more especially 



92 ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO 

when aided by nearness and the opportunities of mutual expression, 
there are sensations of most exquisite bitterness. There is a wretch- 
edness in the mere collision of hostile feelings themselves, though 
they should break not forth into overt-acts of hostility ; in the simple 
demonstrations of malignity, apart from its doings ; in the war but 
of words and looks and fierce gesticulations, though no violence 
should be inflicted on the one side or sustained upon the other. To 
make the aggressor in these purely mental conflicts intensely misera- 
ble, it is enough that he should experience within him the agitations 
and the fires of a resentful heart. To make the recipient intensely 
miserable, it is enough that he should be demoniacally glared upon 
by a resentful eye. Were this power which resides in the emotions 
by themselves sufficiently reflected on, it would evince how inti- 
mately connected, almost how identified, wickedness and wretched- 
ness are with each other. To realize the miseries of a state of war, 
it is not necessary that there should be contests of personal strength. 
The mere contests of personal feeling will suffice. Let there be mu- 
tual rage and mutual revilings ; let there be the pangs and the out- 
cries of fierce exasperation; let there be the continual droppings of 
peevishness and discontent ; let disdain meet with equal disdain ; or 
even, instead of scorn from the lofty, let there be but the slights and 
the insults of contempt from men, who themselves are of the most 
contemptible ; let there be haughty defiance, and spiteful derision, 
and the mortifications of affronted and irritated pride — in the tumults 
of such a scene, though tumults of the mind alone, there were enough 
to constitute a hell of assembled maniacs or of assembled malefac- 
tors. The very presence and operation of these passions would form 
fheir own sorest punishment. To have them perpetually in ourselves 
is to have a hell in the heart. To meet with them perpetually in 
others is to be compassed about with a society of fiends, to be beset 
with the miseries of a Pandemonium. 

12. Whether we look then to the separate or the social constitu- 
tion of humanity, we observe abundant evidence for the mind and 
meaning of the Deity, who both put together the elements of each in- 
dividual nature, and the elements which enter into the composition of 
society. We cannot imagine a more decisive indication of His 
favour being on the side of moral good, and His displeasure against 
moral evil, than that, by the working of each of these constitutions, 
virtue and happiness on the one hand, vice and wretchedness on the 
other, should be so intimately ane inseparably allied. Such sequences 
or laws of nature as these, speak as distinctly the character of him 
who established them, as any laws of jurisprudence would the cha- 
racter of the monarch by whom they were enacted. And to learn 
this lesson, we do not need to wait for the distant consequences of 
vice or virtue. We at once fool the distinction put upon them by the 
hand of the Almighty, in the instant sensations which He hath ap- 
pended to each of them — implicated as their effects are with the very 



THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 93 

fountain-head of moral being, and turning the hearts which they re- 
spectively occupy, into the seats either of wildest anarchy, or of se- 
rene and blissful enjoyment. 

13. The law and operation of habit, as exemplified in one indivi- 
dual irynd, formed the theme of our third general argument. The 
only adaptation which we shall notice to this part of our mental con- 
stitution in the frame-work of society, is that afforded by the changes 
which it undergoes in the flux of its successive generations — in vir- 
tue of which, the tender susceptibilities of childhood are placed under 
the influence of that ascendant seniority which precedes or goes be- 
fore it. At first sight it may be thought of this peculiarity, that it 
tells equally in both directions — that is, either in the transmission and 
accumulation of vice, or in the transmission and accumulation of 
virtue in the world. But there is one circumstance of superiority in 
favour of the latter, which bids us look hopefully onward to the final 
prevalence of the good over the evil. We are aware of the viru- 
lence wherewith, in families, the crime and profligacy of a depraved 
parentage must operate on the habits of their offspring; and of the 
deadly poison which, in crowded cities, passes with quick descent 
from the older to the younger, along the links of youthful companion- 
ship ; and even of those secret, though we trust rare and monstrous 
societies, which, in various countries and various ages, were held 
for the celebration of infernal orgies, for the initiation of the yet un- 
knowing or unpractised in the mysteries of vice. But after every 
deduction has been made for these, who does not see that the sys- 
tematic and sustained effort, the wide and general enterprise, the 
combination of numbers in the face of day and with the sympathies 
of an approving public, give a prodigious balance on the side of mo- 
ral education 1 The very selfishness of vice and expansiveness of 
virtue give rise to this difference between them — the one concenter- 
ed on its own personal enjoyments, and, with a few casual excep- 
tions, rather heedless of the principles of others than set on any 
schemes or speculations of proselytism ; the other, by its very nature, 
aspiring after the good of the whole species, and bent on the propa- 
gation of its own likeness, till righteousness and truth shall have be- 
come universal among men. Accordingly, all the ostensible counte- 
nance and exertion, in the cause of learning, whether by govern- 
ments or associations, is on the side of virtue ; while no man could 
dare to front the public eye, with a scheme of discipleship in the 
lessons whether of fraud or profligacy. The clear tendency then is 
to impress a right direction on the giant power of education ; and 
when this is brought, to bear, more systematically and generally than 
heretofore, on the pliant boyhood of the land — we behold, in the ope- 
ration of habit, a guarantee for the progressive conquests, and at 
length the ultimate and universal triumph of good over evil in so- 
ciety. Our confidence in this result is greatly enhanced, when we 
witness the influence even of but one mind among the hundreds of 



94 ADAPTATION" OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO 

any given neighbourhood — if zealously and wisely directed to the 
object of moral and economical improvement. Let that most pro- 
lific of all philanthropy then be fully and fairly set on foot, which 
operates, by means of education, on the early germs of character; 
and we shall have the most effective of all agency engaged, for the 
production of the likeliest of all results. The law of habit, when 
looked to in the manageable ductility of its outset, presents a mighty 
opening for the production of a new era in the moral history of man- 
kind ; and the same law of habit, when looked to in the maturity of 
its fixed and final establishment, encourages the expectation of a 
permanent as well as universal reign of virtue in the world. 

14. Even in the yet chaotic and rudimental state of the world, 
we can observe the powers and the likelihoods of such a consum- 
mation ; and what gives an overbearing superiority to the chances 
on the side of virtue is, that parents, although the most sunken in 
depravity themselves, welcome the proposals, and receive with gra- 
titude, the services of Christian or moral philanthropy in behalf of 
their families. However hopeless then of reformation among those 
whose vicious habits have become inveterate, it is w 7 ell that there 
should be so wide and unobstructed an access to those, among 
whom the habits have yet to be formed. It is this which places 
education on such firm vantage-ground, if not for reclaiming the 
degeneracy of individuals, yet for reclaiming after the lapse of a 
few generations the degeneracy of the species ; and, however abor- 
tive many of the schemes and enterprises in this highest walk of 
charity may hitherto have proved, yet the manifest and growing 
attention to the cause does open a brilliant moral perspective for 
the ages that are to come. The experience of what has been done 
locally by a few zealous individuals, warrants our most cheering 
anticipations of what may yet be done universally — when the pow- 
ers of that simple but mighty instrument which they employ, if 
brought to bear on that most malleable of all subjects, the infancy of 
human existence, come to be understood, and put into busy opera- 
tion over the whole length and breadth of the land. In the grievous 
defect of our national institutions, and the wretched abandonment of 
a people left to themselves, and who are permitted to live recklessly 
and at random as they list — w r e see enough to account both for the 
profligacy of our crowded cities, and for the sad demoralisation o( 
our neglected provinces. But on the other hand we feel assured. 
that, in an efficient system of wise and well principled instruction, 
there are capabilities within our reach for a great and glorious re- 
vival. We might not know the reason, why, in the moral world, 
so many ages of darkness and depravity should have been permitted 
to pass by — any more than we know the reason, why, in the natural 
world the trees of a forest, instead of starting all at once into the 
full efflorescence and stateliness of their manhood, have to make 
their slow and Laborious advancement to maturity, cradled in storms. 



THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 95 

and alternately drooping or expanding with the vicissitudes of the 
seasons. But, though unable to scan all the cycles either of the 
moral or natural economy, yet may we recognise such influences at 
work, as when multiplied and developed to the uttermost, are abun- 
dantly capable of regenerating the world. One of the likeliest of 
these influences is the power of education — to the perfecting of 
which so many minds are earnestly directed at this moment : and 
for the general acceptance of which in society, we have a gua- 
rantee, in the strongest affections and fondest wishes of the fathers 
and mothers of families. 



CHAPTER V. 

On the special and subordinate Adaptations of external Nature to 
the moral Constitution of Man, 

1. We have hitherto confined our attention to certain great and 
simple phenomena of our moral nature, which, though affording a 
different sort of evidence for the being of God from ,the organic 
and complicated structures of the material world — yet, on the hy- 
pothesis of an existent Deity, are abundantly decisive of His<prefer- 
ence for virtue over vice, and so of the righteousness of His own 
character. That he should have inserted a great master faculty in 
every human bosom, all whose decisions are on the side of justice, 
benevolence, and truth, and condemnatory of their opposites ; that 
He should have inserted this conscience with such powers of instant 
retribution, in the triumphs of that complacency wherewith he so 
promptly rewards the good, and the horrors of that remorse where- 
with He as promptly chastises the evil; that besides these, He should 
have so distinguished between virtue and vice,* as that the emotions 
and excesses of the former should all be pleasureable, and of the 

* Butler, in Part I, Chapter 3d of his Analogy, makes the following* admirable 
discrimination between actions themselves and that quality ascribed to them which, 
we call virtuous or vicious. — " An action by which any natural passion is gratified, 
or fortune acquired, procures delight or advantage, abstracted from all considera- 
tion of the morality of such action, consequently the pleasure or advantage in this 
case is gained by the action itself, not by the morality, the virtuousness, or vicious- 
ness of it, though it be, perhaps, virtuous or vicious. Thus to say, such an action 
or course of behaviour, procured such pleasure or advantage, or brought on such 
inconvenience and pain, is quite a different thing from saying that such good or 
bad effect was owing to the virtue or vice of such action or behaviour. In one 
case, an action abstracted from all moral consideration, produced its effect. In the 
other case, for it will appear that there are such cases, the morality of the action, 
the action under a moral consideration, i. e. the virtuousness or viciousness of it, 
produced the effect. 



96 ADAPTATIONS OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO 

latter painful to the taste of the inner man ; that He should have so 
ordained the human constitution, as that by the law of habit, virtu- 
ous and vicious lives, or series of acts having these respective moral 
qualities, should issue in the fixed and permanent results of virtuous 
and vicious characters — these form the important generalities of our 
moral nature: And while they obviously and immediately announce 
to us a present demonstration in favour of virtue ; they seem to indi- 
cate a preparation and progress towards a state of things, when, 
after that the moral education of the present life has been consum- 
mated, the great Ruler of men will manifest the eternal distinction 
which he puts between the good and the evil. 

2. Now in these few simple sequences, however strongly and 
unequivocally they evince the character of a God already proved or 
already presupposed, we have not the same intense evidence for de- 
sign, which is afforded by the distinct parts or the distinct principles 
of a very multifarious combination. Yet the constitution of man's 
moral nature is not defective in this evidence — though certainly nei- 
ther so prolific nor so palpable in our mental, as in our anatomical 
system. Still, however, there is a mechanism in mind as well as 
body, with a diversity of principles, if not a diversity of parts, con- 
sisting of so many laws, grafted it may be on a simple and indivisi- 
ble substance, yet yielding in the fact of their beneficial concurrence, 
no inconsiderable argument for the wisdom and goodness of Him 
who framed us. Nor does it matter, as we have already said, whe- 
ther these are all of them original, or some of them, as the analysts 
of mind have laboured to manifest, only derivative laws in the hu- 
man constitution. If the former, we have an evidence grounded on 
the beneficial conjunction of a greater number of independent laws. 
If the latter, we are reduced to fewer independent laws — but these 
all the more prolific of useful applications, each of which applica- 
tions is grounded on a beneficial adaptation of some peculiar cir- 
cumstances, in the operation of which it is, that the primary is trans- 
muted into a secondary law.* But whether the one or the other, 
they exhibit phases of humanity distinct from any that we have yet 
been employed in contemplating; a number of special affections, 
each characterised by its own name, and pointing to its own sepa- 
rate object, yet all of them performing an important subsidiary part, 
for the moral good both of the individual and of the species; and 
presenting us, therefore, with the materials of additional evidence 
for a moral and beneficent design in the formation of our race. 

3. When we look to the beauty which overspreads the lace o\' 

• And besides this, would it not bespeak a more comprehensive wisdom on the 
pari of a human artificer, that by means of one device, or by the application of one 
principle, he effected not a few, but many distinct and beneficial purposes ; and 
does it not in like manner enhance the exhibition of divine skill in the workman- 

ship of nature, when a single law is found to subserve a vast and manifold variety 
of important uses } 



THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN". 97 

nature, and the exquisite gratification which it ministers to the senses 
of man — we cannot doubt, either the taste for beauty which resides 
in the primeval mind that emanated all this gracefulness ; or the 
benevolence that endowed man with a kindred taste, and so fitted 
him for a kindred enjoyment. This conclusion, however, like any 
moral conclusion we have yet come to, respecting the perfections or 
the purposes of God, is founded on generalities, — on the general 
amount of beauty in the world, and the delight wherewith men be- 
hold and admire it. Yet, beside this, we may draw a corroborative 
evidence for the same, from the machinery of certain special con- 
trivances — as the construction of the calyx in plants, for the defence 
of the tender blossom previous to its expansion; and the apparatus 
for scattering seeds, whereby the earth is more fully invested with 
its mantle of rich and varied garniture. And notwithstanding the 
blight which has so obviously passed over the moral world, and . 
defaced many of its original lineaments, while it has left the ma- 
terialism of creation, the loveliness of its scenes and landscapes, in a 
great measure untouched — still we possess very much the same 
materials for a Natural Theology, in reasoning on the element of 
virtue, as in reasoning on the element of beauty. We have first 
those generalities of argument which are already expounded by us 
at sufficient length ; and w T e have also the evidence, now to be un- 
folded, of certain special provisions for the preservation and growth 
of the immortal plant, in the study of which, we shall observe more 
of mechanism than we have yet contemplated ; and more, therefore, 
of that peculiar argument for design, which lies in the adaptation of 
varied means, in the concurrence of distinct expedients, each help- 
ing the other onward to a certain beneficial consummation. 

4. But we must here premise an observation extensively applica- 
ble in mental science. When recognising the obvious subserviency 
of some given feeling or principle in the mind to a beneficial result 
— we are apt to imagine that it was somehow or other, in the con- 
templation of this result, that the principle was generated ; and that 
therefore, instead of a distinct and original part of the human con- 
stitution, it is but a derivative from an anterior process of thought or 
calculation on the part of man, in the act of reflecting on what was 
most for the good of himself, or the good of society. In this way 
man is conceived to be in some measure the creator of his own mental 
constitution ; or, at least, there are certain parts of it regarded as se- 
condary, and the formation of which is ascribed to the wisdom of man, 
which, if regarded as instinctive and primary, would have been di- 
rectly ascribed to the wisdom of God. There are many writers, for 
example, on the origin and rights of property, who, instead of admitting 
what may be termed an instinct of appropriation, would hold the 
appropriating tendency to be the result of human intelligence, after 
experience had of the convenience and benefits of such an arrange- 
ment. Now on this subject, we may take a lesson from the physi- 

9 



98 ADAPTATIONS OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO 

cal constitution of man. It is indispensable to the preservation of 
our animal system, that food should be received at certain intervals 
into the stomach. Yet, notwithstanding all the strength which is 
ascribed to the principle of self-preservation, and all the veneration 
which is professed by the expounders of our nature for the wisdom 
and foresight of man — the author of our frame has not left this im- 
portant interest merely to our care, or our consideration. He has 
not so trusted us to ourselves ; He has inserted among the other 
affections and principles wherewith He has endowed us, the appe- 
tite of hunger — a strong and urgent and ever-recurring desire for 
food, which, it is most certain, stands wholly unconnected with any 
thought on our part, of its physical or posterior uses for the suste- 
nance of the body ; and from which it would appear, that we need 
to be not only reminded at proper intervals of this incumbent duty, 
but goaded on to it. Could the analysts of our nature have ascer- 
tained of hunger, that it was the product of man's reflection on the 
necessity of food, it might have been quoted as an instance of the 
care wmich man takes of himself. But it seems that he could not be 
thus confided, either with his own individual preservation, or with 
the preservation of his species; and so, for the security of both 
these objects, strong appetites had to be given him, which, incapable 
of being resolved into any higher principles, stand distinctly and 
unequivocally forth, as instances of the care that is taken of him by 
God. 

5. Now this, though it does not prove, yet may prepare us to ex- 
pect similar provisions in the constitution of our minds. Indeed the 
operose and complicated system, which the great Architect of na- 
ture hath devised for our bodies, carries in it a sort of warning to 
those, who, enamoured of the simplifications of theory, would la- 
bour to reduce all our mental phenomena to one or two principles. 
There is no warrant for this in the examples which Anatomy and 
Physiology, those sciences that have to do with the animal economy 
of man, have placed before our eyes. Now, though we admit not 
this as evidence for the actual complexity of man's moral economy 
— it may at least school away those prepossessions of the fancy or 
of the taste, that would lead us to resist or to dislike such evidence 
when offered. We hold it not unlikely that the same Being, who. to 
supplement the defects of human prudence, hath furnished us with 
distinct corporeal appetites, that might prompt us to operations, of 
the greatest subservient benefit of both to the individual and the 
species — might also, to supplement the defects of human wisdom 
and principle, have furnished us with distinct mental affections or 
desires, both for our own particular good and the good of Bociety. 
If man could not be left to his own guidance, in matters which 
needed hut the anticipation of a low hours: but to save him from 
the decay and the death which must have otherwise ensued, had so 
powerful a remembrancer and instigator given to him as the appe- 
tite of hunger — we ought not to marvel, should it be found that na- 



THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 99 

ture, in endowing him mentally, hath presumed on his incapacity, 
either for wisely devising or for regularly acting, with a view to 
distant consequences, and amid the complicated relations of human 
society. It may, on the one hand, have inserted forces, when the 
mere consideration of good effects would not have impelled ; or, on 
the other hand, may have inserted checks, when the mere con- 
sideration of evil effects would not have arrested. Yet so it is, that, 
because of the good that is thereby secured and of the evil that is 
thereby shunned — we are apt to imagine of some of the most useful 
principles of our nature, that they are, somehow, the product of hu- 
man manufacture ; the results of human intelligence, or of rapid 
processes of thought by man, sitting in judgment on the conse- 
quences of his actions, and wisely providing either for or against 
them. Now it is very true, that the anger, and the shame, and the 
emulation, and the parental affection, and the compassion, and the 
love of reputation, and the sense of property, and the conscience or 
moral sense — are so many forces of a mechanism, which if not thus 
furnished, and that too within certain proportions, would run into a 
disorder that might have proved destructive both of the individual 
and of the species. For reasons already hinted at, we hold it im- 
material to the cause of natural theism, whether these constitutional 
propensities of the human mind are its original or its secondary 
laws ; but, at all events, it is enough for any argument of ours, that 
they are not so generated by the wisdom of man, as to supersede 
the inference which we draw from them, in favour both of the wis- 
dom and goodness of God. 

6. The common definition given of anger, is an instance of the 
tendency on the part of philosophers, if not to derive, at least to 
connect the emotions of which we have been made susceptible with 
certain anterior or higher principles of our nature.' Dr. Reid tells 
us that the proper object of resentment is an injury ; and that as 
" no man can have the notion of injustice, without having the notion 
of justice," then, " if resentment be natural to man, the notion of 
justice must be no less natural."* And Dr. Brown defines anger to 
be " that emotion of instant displeasure, which arises from the feel- 
ing of injury done or the discovery of injury intended, or, in many 
cases, from the discovery of the mere omission of good offices to 
which we conceived ourselves entitled, though this very omission 
may, of itself, be regarded as a species of injury." Now the sense 
of injury implies a sense of its opposite — a sense of justice, there- 

* In glaring contradiction to this, is Dr. Reid's own affirmation regarding the 
brutes. He says, "that conscience is peculiar to man, we see no vestige of it in 
the brute animals. It is one of those prerogatives by which we are raised above 
them." But animals are most abundantly capable of anger — even of that which, 
by a very general definition, is said to be the emotion that is awakened by a sense 
of injury, which sense of injury must imply in it the sense of its opposite, even of 
justice, and so land us in the conclusion that brutes are capable of moral concep- 
tion, or that they have a conscience. 



100 ADAPTATIONS OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO 

fore, or the conception of a moral standard from which the injury 
that has awakened the resentment, is felt to be a deviation. But as 
nothing ought to form part of a definition, which is not indispensa- 
ble to the thing defined, it would appear, as if, in the judgment of 
both these philosophers, all who were capable of anger must also 
have, to a certain degree, a capacity of moral judgment or moral 
feeling. The property of resenting a hurt inflicted upon ourselves, 
would, at this rate, argue, in all cases, a perception of what the 
moral and equitable adjustment would be between ourselves and 
others. Now, that these workings of a moral nature are essential 
to the feeling of anger, is an idea which admits of most obvious and 
decisive refutation — it being an emotion to which not only infants 
are competent, anterior to the first dawnings of their moral nature ; 
but even idiots, with whom this nature is obliterated, or still more 
the inferior animals who want it altogether. There must be a sense 
of annoyance to originate the feeling ; but a sense of injury, imply- 
ing, as it does, a power of moral judgment or sensibility, can be in 
no way indispensable to an emotion, exemplified in its utmost force 
and intensity by sentient creatures, in whom there cannot be de- 
tected even the first rudiments of a moral nature. Two dogs, when 
fighting for a bone, make as distinct and declared an exhibition of 
their anger, as two human beings when disputing about the boundary 
of their contiguous fields. The emotion flashes as unequivocally 
from any of the inferior, as it does from the only rational and moral 
species on the face of our globe ; as in the vindictive glare of an 
infuriated bull, or of a lioness robbed of her whelps, and who as if 
making proclamation of her wrongs, gives forth her deep and reite- 
rated cry to the echoes of the wilderness. It is an emotion, in fact, 
which seems coextensive, not only with moral, but with physical 
sensation. And, if any faith can be placed in the physiognomy, or 
the natural signs, by which irrational creatures represent what 
passes within them ; this passion announces itself as vividly and 
discernibly in the outcries of mutual resentment which ring through- 
out the amplitudes of savage and solitary nature, as in the contests 
of civilized man. 

7. The truth, then, seems to be, that the office of the moral faculty is, 
not to originate, but rather to confine and qualify and regulate this 
emotion. Anger, if we but study its history and actual exhibitions, 
will be found the primary and the natural response to a hurt or harm 
or annoyance of any sort inflicted <>n us by others : and. as such, may 
be quite expansive and unrestrained and open to excitation from all 
(joints of the compass — anterior to and apart from any consideration 
of its justice j or whether in tin- being who called it forth, there have 
been the purpose or nut of violating our rights. Infants are hill)- ca- 
pable of the feeling, long before they have a notion of equity, or of what 
htfully their own and rightfully another's. The anger of ani- 
tOO, is, in like manner, destitute of that moral ingredient, which 



THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 101 

the definitions we have quoted suppose indispensable to the formation 
of it. And yet their emitted sounds have the very expression of 
fierceness, ihat we meet with so often among the fellows of our own 
species. The provocation, the resentment, the kindling glance of 
hostility, the gradual heightening of the wrath, its discharge in acts 
of mutual violence, and lastly, its glutted satisfaction in the flight 
and even the death of the adversary — these are all indicative of 
kindred workings within, that have their outward vent in a common 
and kindred physiognomy, between him who is styled the lord of the 
creation, and those beneath his feet, who are conceived to stand at 
a distance that scarcely admits of comparison in the phenomena of 
their nature. Even man, in the full growth of his rational and moral 
nature, will often experience the outbreakings of an anger merely 
physical ; as, to state one instance out of the many, may be wit- 
nessed in the anger wreaked by him on the inferior animals, when, 
all unconscious of injury to him, they enter upon his fields, or 
damage the fruit of his labours. The object of a just resentment 
towards others, is the purposed injustice of others towards us ; and, 
so far from purposing the injustice, animals have not even the faculty 
of conceiving it. The moral consideration, then, does not enter as 
a constituent part into all resentment. It is rather a superadded 
quality which designates a species of it. It is not the epithet which 
characterises all anger, but is limited to a certain kind of it. It may 
be as proper to say of one anger that it is just, and of another that 
justice or morality has had nothing to do with it — as it is to say of 
one blow by the hand that it has been rightfully awarded, and of 
another blow that such a moral characteristic is wholly inapplicable. 
Morality may at times characterise both the mental feeling, and the 
muscular performance ; but it should be as little identified with the 
one as with the other. And however much analysts may have 
succeeded on other occasions, in reducing to sameness what ap- 
peared to be separate constituents of our nature, certain it is, that 
anger cannot thus be regarded as a resulting manufacture from 
any of its higher principles. It forms a distinct and original 
part of our constitution, of which morality, whenever it exists and 
has the predominance, might take the direction, without being at all 
essential to the presence or operation of it. So far from this, it is 
nowhere exhibited in greater vivacity and distinctness than by those 
creatures who possess but an animal, without so much as the germ, 
or the rudest elements of a moral nature. 

8. Anger then is an emotion that may rage and tumultuate in a 
bosom into which one moral conception has never entered. For its 
excitement nothing more seems necessary than to thwart any desire 
however unreasonable, or to disappoint any one object which the 
heart may chance to be set upon. So far from a sense of justice being 
needful to originate this emotion — it is the man w r ho, utterly devoid 
of justice, would monopolise to himself all that lies within the visible 

9* 



102 ADAPTATIONS OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO 

horizon, who is most exposed to its visitation. He is the most vul- 
nerable to wrath from every point of the vast circumference around 
him — who, conceiving the Universe to be made for himself alone, is 
most insensible to the rights and interests of other men. It is in fact 
because he is so unfurnished with the ideas of justice, that he is so 
unbridled in resentment. Justice views the world and all its interests 
as already partitioned among the various members of the human 
population, each occupying his own little domain; and, instead of 
permitting anger to expatiate at random over the universal face of 
things, justice would curb and overrule its ebullitions in the bosom 
of every individual, till a trespass was made within the limits of that 
territory which is properly and peculiarly his own. In other words, 
it is the office of this virtue, not to inspire anger, but to draw land- 
marks and limitations around it; and, so far from a high moral 
principle originating this propensity, it is but an animal propensity, 
restrained and kept within check and confinement at the bidding of 
principle. 

9. The distinction between reflective and unreflective anger did 
not escape the notice of the sagacious Butler, as may be seen in the 
following passages of a sermon upon resentment. — " Resentment 
is of tw r o kinds — hasty and sudden, or settled and deliberate. The 
former is called anger and often passion, which, though a general 
word, is frequently appropriated and confined to the particular feel- 
ing, sudden anger, as distinct from deliberate resentment malice and 
revenge." " Sudden anger upon certain occasions is mere instinct, 
as merely so, as the disposition to close our eyes upon the apprehen- 
sion of something falling into them, and no more necessarily implies 
any degree of reason. I say necessarily, for, to be sure, hasty as 
well as deliberate anger, may be occasioned by injury or contempt, 
in which cases reason suggests to our thoughts the injury and con- 
tempt which is the occasion of the emotion : But I am speaking of 
the former, only in so far as it is to be distinguished from the latter. 
The only way in which our reason and understanding can raise 
anger, is by representing to our mind an injustice or injury of some 
kind or other. Now momentary anger is frequently raised, not only 
without any rule, but without any reason ; that is, without any 
appearance of injury as distinct from hurt or pain. It cannot, I 
suppose, be thought that this passion in infants and the lower species 
of animals, and which is often seen in man towards them, it cannot, 
I say, be imagined that these instances of this emotion arc the effect 
of reason: no, they are occasioned by mere sensation and feeling. 
It is opposition, sudden hurt, violence which naturally excites this 
passion; and the real demeril or fault o{ him who offers that vio- 
lence, or is the cause of thai opposition or hurt, does not in many 
cases so much as come into thought." " The reason and end for 

which lean was made thus liable to this emotion, is that he might be 
belter qualified to prevent, and likewise or perhaps chiefly to resist 



THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 103 

and defeat sudden force, violence, and opposition, considered merely 
as such, and without regard to the fault or demerit of him who is 
the author of them ; yet since violence may be considered in this 
other and further view, as implying fault, and since injury as distinct 
from harm may raise sudden anger, sudden anger may likewise 
accidentally serve to prevent or remedy such fault and injury. But 
considered as distinct from settled anger, it stands in our nature for 
self-defence, and not for the administration of justice. There are 
plainly cases, and in the uncultivated parts of the world, and where 
regular governments are not formed, they frequently happen, in 
which there is no time for considering, and yet to be passive is cer- 
tain destruction, in which sudden resistance is the only security." — 
It is an exceeding good instance that Bishop Butler gives of the dis- 
tinction between instinctive and what may be called rational anger, 
when he specifies the anger that we often feel towards the inferior 
animals. There is properly no injury done, where there is no injury 
intended. And he who is incapable of conceiving what an injury 
is, is not a rightful object for at least any moral resentment. But 
that there is what may be called a physical as well as a moral 
resentment, is quite palpable from the positive wrath which is felt 
when anything untoward or hurtful is done to us even by the irra- 
tional creatures. The men who use them as instruments of service 
often discharge the most outrageous wrath upon them — acting the 
part of ferocious tyrants towards these wretched victims of their 
cruelty. When a combat takes place between man and one of the 
inferior animals, there is a resentment felt by the former just as keen 
and persevering, as if it were between two human combatants. This 
makes it quite obvious that there may be anger without any sense 
of designed injury on the part of him who is the object of it. Even 
children, idiots, lunatics, might all be the objects of such resentment. 
10. The final cause of this emotion in the inferior animals is 
abundantly obvious. It stimulates and ensures resistance to that 
violence, which, if not resisted, would often terminate in the destruc- 
tion of its object. And it probably much oftener serves the purpose 
of prevention than of defence. The first demonstration of a vio- 
lence to be offered on the one hand, when met by the preparation 
and the counter-menace of an incipient resentment on the other, not 
only repels the aggression after it has begun, but still more frequent- 
ly, we believe, through the reaction and restraint of fear on the 
otherwise attacking party, prevents the aggression from being made. 
The stout and formidable antagonists eye each other with a sort of 
natural respect ; and, as if by a common though tacit consent, wisely 
abstain on either side from molestation, and pass onward without a 
quarrel. It is thus that many a fierce contest is forborne, which, 
but for the operation of anger on the one side, and fear upon the 
other, would most certainly have been entered upon. And so by a 
system, or machinery of reciprocal checks and counteractives, and 



104 ADAPTATIOXS OF EXTERNAL XATURE TO 

\vh( re the mental affections too perform the part of essential forces, 
there is not that incessant warfare of extermination which might have 
depopulated the whole world. And here we might observe, that, in 
studying that balance of power and of preserving influences, which 
obtains even in a commonwealth of brutes, the uses of a mental are 
just as palpable as those of a material collocation. The anger 
which prompts to the resistance of aggression is as obviously insert- 
ed by the hand of a contriver, as are the horns or the bristles or 
any other defensive weapons wherewith the body of the animal is 
furnished. The fear which wings the flight of a pursued animal is 
as obviously intended for its safety, as is its muscular conformation 
or capacity for speed. The affection of a mother for her young points 
as intelligibly to a designer's care for the preservation of the species, 
as does that apparatus of nourishment wherewith nature hath endow- 
ed her. The mother's fondness supplies as distinct and powerfu' an 
argument as the mother's milk — or, in other words, a mental con- 
stitution might, as well as a physical constitution, be pregnant with 
the indications of a God. 

11. But to return to the special affection of anger, with a refer- 
ence more particularly to its working in our own species, where we 
have the advantage of nearer and distincter observation. We 
must be abundantly sensible of the pain which there is, not merely 
in the feeling of resentment, when it burns and festers within our 
own hearts, but also in being, the objects of another's resentment. 
They are not the effects only of his anger that we are afraid of; 
we are afraid of the anger itself, of but the looks and the words of 
angry violence, though we should be perfectly secure from all the 
deeds of violence. The simple displeasure of another is formidable, 
though no chastisement whatever shall follow upon it. We are so 
constituted, that we tremble before the frown of an offended counte- 
nance, and perhaps as readily as we would under the menace of an 
uplifted arm ; and would often make as great a sacrifice to shun the 
moral discomfort of another's wrath, as to shun the physical inflic- 
tion which his wrath might impel him to lay upon us. It is thus 
that where there is no strength for any physical infliction, still there 
may be a power of correction that amply makes up for it. in the 
rebuke of an indignant eye or an indignant voice. This goes far to 
repair the inequalities of muscular force among men: and forms 
indeed a most important mound of defence against the effervescence 
and the 6utbreakings of brute violence in society. It is incalculable 
how much we owe to this influence lor the peace and courteous- 
ness that obtain in every neighbourhood. The more patent view oi' 
anger is, that it is an instrument of defence against the aggressions 
of violence <>r injustice; and by which they are kept in check, from 
desolating, as they otherwise would, the face of society. But it not 
onlv operates ;i> a corrective against the outrages that are actually 
made. It has a preventive operation also ; and we are wholly un- 



THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 105 

able to say, in how far the dread of its forth-breaking, serves to 
soften and* to subdue human intercourse into those many thousand 
decencies of mutual forbearance and complaisance, by which it is 
gladdened and adorned. There is a recoil from anger in the heart 
of every man when directed against himself; and many who would 
disdain to make one sacrifice by which to appease it, after it had 
thrown down the gauntlet of hostility, will in fact make one con- 
tinued sacrifice of their tone and manner and habit, that it may not 
be awakened out of its slumbers. It were difficult to compute how 
much we are indebted, for the blandness and amenity of human 
companionships, to the consciousness of so many sleeping fires, in 
readiness to blaze forth, at the touch or on the moment of any pro- 
vocation being offered. We doubt not, that, in military and fash- 
ionable, and indeed in all society, it acts as a powerful restraint on 
everything that is offensive. The domineering insolence of those 
who, with the instrument of anger too, would hold society in bon- 
dage, is most effectively arrested, when met by an anger which 
throws back the fear upon themselves, and so quiets and composes 
all their violence. It is thus that a balance is maintained, without 
which human society might go into utter derangement ; and without 
which too, even the animal creation might lose its stability and dis- 
appear. And there is a kind of moral power in the anger itself, 
that is separate from the animal or the physical strength which it 
puts into operation ; and which invests with command, or at least 
provides with defensive armour those who would otherwise be the 
most helpless of our species — so that decrepid age or feeble woman- 
hood has by the mere rebuke of an angry countenance made the 
stoutest heart to tremble before them. It is a moral force, by which 
the inequalities of muscular force are repaired ; and while itself a 
firebrand and a destroyer, yet, by the very terror of its ravages, 
which it diffuses among all, were it to stalk abroad and at large 
over the world — does it contribute to uphold the pacific virtues 
among men. 

12. When the anger of one individual in a household is the terror 
of the rest, then that individual may become the little despot of the 
establishment ; and thus it is that often the feeblest of them all in 
muscular strength may wield a domestic tyranny by which the 
stoutest is overpowered. But when the anger of this one is for- 
tunately met with the spirit and resolution of another, then, kept 
at bay with its own weapon, it is neutralized into a state of inno- 
cence. It is not necessary for the production of this effect, that 
the parties ever should have come to the extremity of an open and 
declared violence. If there be only a mutual consciousness of each 
other's energy of passion and purpose, then a mutual awe and mu- 
tual forbearance may be the result of it. And thus it is, that, by 
the operation of these reciprocal checks in a family, the peace and 
order of it may be securely upholden. We have witnessed how 
much a wayward and outrageous temper has been sweetened, by 



106 ADAPTATIONS OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO 

the very presence in the same mansion, of one who could speak 
again, and would not succumb to any unreasonable violence. The 
violence is abated. And we cannot compute how much it is that 
the blandness and the mutual complaisance which obtain in society 
are due to the secret dread in which men stand of each other's irri- 
tation ; or, in other words, little do we know to what extent, the 
smile and the courteousness and the urbanity of civilized life, that 
are in semblance so many expressions of human benevolence, may, 
really and substantially, be owing to the fears of human selfishness. 
Were this speculation pursued, it might lead to a very humiliating 
estimate indeed of the virtue of individuals — though we cannot but 
admire the wisdom of that economy, by which, even without virtue, 
individuals may be made, through the mutual action and reaction 
of their emotions, to form the materials of a society that can stand. 
Anger does in private life, what the terrors of the penal code do in 
the community at large. It acts with salutary influence, in a vast 
multiplicity of cases, which no law could possibly provide for ; and 
where the chastisements of law, whether in their corrective or pre- 
ventive influence, cannot reach. The good of a penal discipline in 
society extends far and wide beyond the degree in which it is actu- 
ally inflicted ; and many are the pacific habits of a neighbourhood, 
that might be ascribed, not to the pacific virtues of the men who 
compose it, but to the terror of those consequences which all men 
know would ensue upon their violation. And it is just so of anger, 
in the more frequent and retired intercourse of private life. The 
good which it does by the fear of its ebullitions is greater far than 
all which is done by the actual ebullitions themselves. But we can- 
not fail to perceive that the amount of service which is done in this 
way to the species at large, must all be regarded as a deduction 
from the amount of credit which is due to the individuals who be- 
long to it. We have already remarked on the propensity of moral- 
ists to accredit the wisdom of man with effects, which, as being 
provided for not by any care or reflection of ours, but by the opera- 
tion of constitutional instincts — are more properly and immediately 
to be ascribed to the wisdom of God. And in like manner, there is 
a propensity in moralists to accredit the wisdom of man with effects, 
which, as being provided for not by any consciousness or exercise 
of principle on our part, but by the operation still of constitutional 
instincts — are more properly and immediately to be ascribed to the 
goodness of God.* 

* The following- extract from Brown tends well to illustrate one of the final causes 
for the implantation of this principle in OUT constitution. — " What human wants 

required, thai all-foreseeing Power, who is the guardian of our infirmities, has 
supplied to human weakness. There is a principle in our mind, which is to us 
like a constant protector, which maj slumber, indeed, hut which slumbers only at 
seasons when its vigilance would be useless, which awakes therefore, at the first 

appearance of Unjust intention, and which becomes more watchful and more 
Vigorous, in proportion to the violence of the attack which it has to dread. 



THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 107 

13. There is another special affection which we feel more parti- 
cularly induced to notice, from its palpable effect in restraining the 
excess of one of nature's strongest appetites. Its position in the men- 
tal system reminds one of the very obvious adaptation to each other 
of the antagonist muscles in anatomy. We allude to the operation 
of shame between the sexes, considered as a check or counteractive 
to the indulgence of passion between the sexes. - The former is as 
clear an instance of moral, as the latter is of physical adaptation. 
And in their adjustment the one to the other, we observe the sort of 
exquisite balancing, which, perhaps more than anything else, indi- 
cates the wisdom and the hand of a master — as if when, in the exe- 
cution of some very nice and diffi-cult task, he is managing between 
contrary extremes, or is devising in just proportion for contrary in- 
terests. We might better comprehend the design of this strikingly 
peculiar mechanism, by imagining the two opposite instincts, that 
either of them was in excess, or either of them in defect. Did the 
constitutional modesty prevail to a certain conceivable extent — it 
might depopulate the world. Did the animal propensity preponder- 
ate, on the other hand — it might land the world in an anarchy of un- 
blushing and universal licentiousness — to the entire breaking up of 
our present blissful economy, by which society is partitioned into 
separate families ; and, with the interests of domestic life to provide 
for, and its affections continually to recreate the heart in the midst 
of anxieties and labours, mankind are kept in a state both of most 
useful activity and of greatest enjoyment. We cannot conceive a 
more skilful, we had almost said a more delicate or dexterous 
adjustment, than the one actually fixed upon — by which, in the 
first instance, through an appetency sufficiently strong the species is 
upholden ; and, in the second instance, through the same appetency 
sufficiently restrained, those hallowed decencies of life are kept un- 
violate, which are so indispensable to all order and to all moral grace- 
fulness among men. We have only to conceive the frightful aspect 

What should we think of the providence of nature, if, when aggression was 
threatened against the weak and unarmed, at a distance from the aid of others, 
there were instantly and uniformly, by the intervention of some wonder v . ing 
power, to rush into the hand of the defenceless a sword or other weapon of de- 
fence? And yet this would be but a feeble assistance, if compared with ich. 
we receive from the simple emotions which Heaven has caused to rush, as it re, 
into our mind for repelling every attack. What would be a sword in the trembling 
hand of the infirm, of the aged, of him. whose pusillanimous spirit shrinks he 
very appearance, not of danger merely, but even of the arms by 'he use of « ich 
danger might be averted, and to whom consequently, the very sword, which he 
scarcely knew how to grasp, would be an additional cause of terror, no' ru- 
ment of defence and safety? The instant anger which arises does more I my 
such weapons. It gives the spirit, which knows how to make a weapon ry- 
thing, or, which of itself does, without a weapon, what even a thunderbol uld 
be powerless to do, in the shuddering grasp of the coward. When anger ses, 
fear is gone; there is no coward, for all are brave. Even bodily infirmity s ems 
to yield to it, like the very infirmities of the mind. The old are, for the moment, 
young again ; the weakest, vigorous." Lect. lxiii. 



108 ADAPTATIONS OF EXTERNAL NATURE, &C. 

which society would put on, did unbridled licentiousness stalk at 
large as a destroyer, and rifle every home of those virtues which at 
once guard and adoru it. The actual and the beautiful result, when 
viewed in connexion with that moral force, by the insertion of which 
in our nature it is accomplished, strongly bespeaks a presiding intel- 
lect — which in framing the mechanism of the human mind, had re- 
spect to what was most beneficent and best for the mechanism of 
human society. 

14. It is well that man is so much the creature of a constitution 
which is anterior to his own wisdom and his own will, and of cir- 
cumstances which are also anterior to his wisdom and his will. It 
would have needed a far more comprehensive view than we are 
equal to, both of what was best for men in a community and for 
man as an individual, to have left a creature so short-sighted or of 
such brief and narrow survey, with the fixing either of his own prin- 
ciples of action or of his relation with the external world. That 
constitutional shame, that quick and trembling delicacy, a prompt 
and ever-present guardian, appearing as it does in very early child- 
hood, is most assuredly not a result from any anticipation by us, 
either of future or distant consequences. Even the moral sense 
within us, does not speak so loudly or so distinctly the evil of this 
transgression, as it does of falsehood, or of injurious freedom with 
the property of a neighbour, or of personal violence. Other forces 
than those of human prudence or human principle seem to have been 
necessary, for resisting a most powerful and destructive fascination, 
which never is indulged, without deterioration to the whole structure 
of the moral character and constitution ; and which, when once per- 
mitted to lord it over the habits, so often terminates in the cruel dis- 
ruption of families, and the irretrievable ruin and disgrace of the 
offender. It is not by any prospective calculation of ours, that this 
natural modesty, acting as a strong precautionary check against 
evils which however tremendous, we are too heedless to reflect upon, 
has been established within us. It is directly implanted by one, who 
sees the end from the beginning; and so forms altogether a most pal- 
pable instance, in which we have reason to congratulate ourselves, 
that the well-being of man, instead of being abandoned to himself, 
has been placed so immediately under the management of bettor and 
higher hands. 

15. There are many other special affections in our nature — the 
principal of which will fall to be noticed in succeeding chapters : and 
the interests to which they are respectively subservient form a na- 
tural ground of division, in our treatment of them, Certain of these 
affections stand related to the civil, and certain of them to the eco- 
nomic well-being of society ; and each of these subserviencies will 
form the subject of a separate argument. 



109 



CHAPTER VI. 



On those special Affections which conduce to the civil and 'political 

Well-being of Society. 

1. The first step towards the aggregation of men into a commu- 
nity, or the first departure from a state of perfect isolation, could 
that state ever have subsisted for a single day, is the patriarchal ar- 
rangement. No sooner indeed is the infant creature ushered into 
being, than it is met by the cares and the caresses of those who are 
around it, and who have either attended or welcomed its entry on 
this scene of existence — as if, in very proportion to the extremity of 
its utter helplessness, was the strength of that security which nature 
hath provided, in the workings of the human constitution, for the 
protection of its weakness and the supply of all its little wants. That 
there should be hands to receive and to manage this tender visitant, 
is not more obviously a benevolent adaptation, than that there should 
be hearts to sympathize with its cries of impotency or distress. The 
maternal affection is as express an instance of this as the maternal 
nourishment — nor is the inference at all weakened, by the attempts, 
even though they should be successful, of those who would demon- 
strate of this universal fondness of mothers, that, instead of an origi- 
nal instinct, it is but a derived or secondary law of our nature. Were 
that analysis as distinct and satisfactory as it is doubtful and ob- 
scure, which would resolve all mental phenomena into the single 
principle of association — still the argument would stand. A second- 
ary law, if not the evidence of a distinct principle, requires at least 
distinct and peculiar circumstances for its developement ; and the 
right ordering of these for a beneficial result, is just as decisively the 
proof and the characteristic of a plan, as are the collocations of 
Anatomy. It might not have been necessary to endow matter with 
any new property for the preparation of a child's aliment in the 
breast of its mother — yet the framework of that very peculiar appa- 
ratus by which the milk is secreted, and the suckling's mouth pro- 
vided with a duct of conveyance for the abstraction of it, is, in the 
many fitnesses of time and place and complicated arrangement, preg- 
nant with the evidence of a designer's contrivance and a designer's 
care. And in like manner, though it should be established, that the 
affection of a mother for her young from the moment of their birth, 
instead of an independent principle in her nature, was the dependent 
product of remembrances and feelings which had accumulated dur- 
ing the period of gestation, and were at length fixed amidst the 
agonies of parturition, into the strongest of all her earthly regards 
— the argument for design is just as entire, though, instead of 
connecting it with the peculiaritv of an original law, we connect it 

10 



110 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 

with the peculiarity of those circumstances which favour the de- 
velopement of this maternal feeling, in the form of a secondary law. 

There is an infinity of conceivable methods, by which the succes- 
sive generations of men might have risen into being ; and our argu- 
ment is entire, if, out of these, that method has been selected, where- 
of the result is an intense affection on the part of mothers for their 
offspring. It matters not whether this universal propensity of theirs 
be a primary instinct of nature, or but a resulting habit which can 
be traced to the process which they have been actually made to un- 
dergo, or the circumstances in which they have actually been 
placed. The ordination of this process, the mandate for the assem- 
blage and collocation of these circumstances, gives as distinct and 
decisive indication of an ordaining mind, as would the establishment 
of any peculiar law. Let it suffice once for all to have said this — 
for if in the prosecution of our inquiry, we stopped at every turn to 
entertain the question, whether each beneficial tendency on which 
we reasoned, were an original or only a secondary principle in na- 
ture — we should be constantly rushing uncalled into the mists of ob- 
scurity ; and fastening upon our cause an element of doubt and 
weakness, which in no wise belongs to it. 

2. The other affections which enter into the composition, or rather, 
form the cement of a family, are more obviously of a derivative, and 
less obviously of an instinctive character, than is that strong ma- 
ternal affinity which meets so opportunely with the extreme help- 
lessness of its objects, that but for the succour and sympathy of those 
whose delight it is to cherish and sustain them, would perish in the 
infancy of their being. However questionable the analysis might be, 
which would resolve the universal fondness of mothers for their 
young into something anterior— the paternal and brotherly and filial 
affections seem, on surer grounds, and which are accessible to ob- 
servation, not to be original but originated feelings. Inquirers, ac- 
cording to their respective tastes and tendencies, have deviated on 
both sides of the evidence — that is, either to an excessive and hypo- 
thetic simplification of nature, or to an undue multiplication of her 
first principles. And certain it is, that when told of the mystic ties 
which bind together into a domestic community, as if by a sort of 
certain peculiar attraction, all of the same kindred and the same 
blood — we are reminded of those occult qualities, which, io the phy- 
sics both of matter and of mind, afforded so much of entertainment, 
to the scholastics of a former age. But with the adjustment of this 
philosophy we properly have no concern. It matters not to our ar- 
gument whether the result in question be due to the force of instincts 
or to the force of circumstances, — any more than whether in the 
physical system, a certain beneficial result may be ascribed to apt 
and peculiar laws, or to apt and peculiar collocations. In virtue of 
one or other or both of these causes, we behold the individuals of 
the species grouped together — or, as it may be otherwise expressed, 



THE WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. Ill 

the aggregate mass of the species, broken asunder into distinct fami- 
lies, and generally living by themselves, each family under one com- 
mon roof, but apart from all the rest in distinct habitations ; while 
the members of every little commonwealth are so linked by certain 
affections, or by certain feelings of reciprocal obligation, that each 
member feels almost as intensely for the wants and sufferings of the 
rest. as he would for his own, or labours as strenuously for the sus- 
tenance of all as he would for his own individual sustenance. There 
is very generally a union of hearts, and still oftener a union of hands, 
for the common interest and provision of the household. 

3. The benefits of such an arrangement are too obvious to be 
enumerated. Even though the law of self-preservation had sufficed 
in those cases where the individual has adequate wisdom to devise, 
and adequate strength to provide for his own maintenance — of itself 
it could not have availed, when this strength and this wisdom are 
wanting. It is in the bosom of families, and under the touch and im- 

Imlse of family affections, that helpless infancy is nurtured into raan- 
lood, and helpless disease or age have the kindliest and most effective 
succour afforded to them. Even when the strength for labour, 
instead of being confined to one, is shared among several of the 
household, there is often an incalculable benefit, in the very concert 
of their forces and community of their gains — so long, for example, 
as a brotherhood, yet advancing towards maturity, continue to live 
under the same roof, and to live under the direction of one authority, 
or by the movement of one will. We shall not expatiate, either on 
the enjoyment that might be had under such an economy, while it 
lasts, in the sweets of mutual affection ; or minutely explain how, 
after the economy is dissolved, and the separate members betake 
themselves each to his own way in the world — the duties and the 
friendships of domestic life are not annihilated by this dispersion; 
but, under the powerful influence of a felt and acknowledged rela- 
tionship, the affinities of kindred spread and multiply beyond their 
original precincts, to the vast increase of mutual sympathy and aid 
and good offices in general society. It will not, we suppose, be 
questioned — that a vastly greater amount of good is done by the 
instrumentality of others, and that the instrumentality itself is greatly 
more available, under the family system, to which we are prompted 
by the strong affections of nature, than if that system were dissolved. 
But the remarkable thing is, that these affections had to be provided, 
as so many impellent forces — guiding men onward to an arrange- 
ment the most prolific of advantage for the whole, but which no 
care or consideration of the general good would have led them to 
form. This provision for the wants of the social economy, is analo- 
gous to that, which we have already observed, for the wants of the 
animal economy. Neither of these interests was confided to any 
cold generality, whether of principle or prudence. In the one, the 
strong appetite of hunger supplements the deficiency of the rational 
rinciple of self-preservation. In the other, the strong family affec- 



112 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 

tions supplement the deficiency of the moral principle of general 
benevolence. Without the first, the requisite measures would not 
have been taken for the regular sustenance of the individual. With- 
out the other, the requisite measures would not have been taken for 
the diffused sustenance of the community at large. 

4. Such is the mechanism of human society, as it comes direct, 
from the hand of nature or of nature's God. But many have been 
the attempts of human wisdom to mend and to meddle with it. Cos- 
mopolitism, in particular, has endeavoured to substitute a sort of uni- 
versal citizenship, in place of the family affections — regarding these 
as so many disturbing forces ; because, operating only as incentives 
to a partial or particular benevolence, they divert the aim from that 
which should, it is contended, be the object of every enlightened 
philanthropist, the general and greatest good of the whole. It is 
thus that certain transcendental speculatists would cut asunder all 
the special affinities of our nature, in order that men, set at large 
from the ties and the duties of the domestic relationship, might be at 
liberty to prosecute a more magnificent and god-like career of 
virtue ; and, in every single action, have respect, not to the well- 
being of the individual, but to the well-being of the species. And 
thus also, friendship and patriotism have been stigmatised, along 
with the family affections, as so many narrow-minded virtues, 
which, by their distracting influence, seduce men from that all-com- 
prehensive virtue, whose constant study being the good of the world 
— a happy and regenerated world, it is the fond imagination of some, 
would be the result of its universal prevalence among men. 

5. Fortunately, nature is too strong for this speculation, which, 
therefore, has only its full being, in the reveries or the pages of those 
who, in authorship, may well be termed the philosophical novelists 
of our race. But, beside the actual strength of those special pro- 
pensities in the heart of man, which no generalization can overrule, 
there is an utter impotency in human means or human expedients. 
for carrying this hollow, this heartless generalization into effect. It 
is easy to erect into a moral axiom, the principle of greatest happi- 
ness ; and then, on the strength of it, to denounce all the special 
affections, and propose the substitution of a universal affection in 
their place. But in prosecuting the object of this last affection, 
what specific and intelligible thing arc they to do? How shall they 
go about it? What conventional scheme shall men fall upon next 
for obtaining the maximum of utility, after they have broken loose. 
each from his own little home, and have been emancipated from 
those intense regards, which worked so effectively and with such 
force of concentration there I li has never been clearlj shown, 
how the glorious simplifications of those cosmopolites admit o( being 
practically realised— whether by a combination, o{ which the chance 
is that all men mighl no1 agree upon it; or by each issuing quixoti- 
cally forth of his own habitation, and labouring the best he may to 

realise the splendid conception by which he is fired and actuated. 



THE WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 113 

And it does not occur to those who would thus labour to extirpate 
the special affections from our nature, that it is in the indulgence of 
them that all conceivable happiness lies ; and that, in being bereft of 
them, we should be in truth bereft of all the means and materials of 
enjoyment, And there is the utmost difference in point of effect, as 
w T ell as in point of feeling, between the strong love wherewith nature 
hath endued us for a few particular men, and the general love 
wherewith philosophers would inspire us for men in the abstract — 
the former philanthropy leading to a devoted and sustained habit of 
well directed exertion, for supplying the wants and multiplying the 
enjoyments of every separate household ; the latter philanthropy, at 
once indefinite in its aim and intangible in its objects, overlooking 
every man just because charging itself with the oversight of all men. 
It is by a summation of particular utilities which each man, under the 
impulse of his own particular affections, contributes to the general 
good, that nature provides for the happiness of the world. But am- 
bitious and aspiring man would take the charge of this happiness 
upon himself; and his first step would be to rid the heart of all its 
special affections — or, in other words, to unsettle the moral dynamics 
which nature hath established there, without any other moral dyna- 
mics, either of precise direction or of operative force, to establish in 
their room. After having paralysed all the ordinary principles of 
action, he would, in his newly modelled system of humanity, be able 
to set up no principle of action whatever. His wisdom, when thus 
opposed to the wisdom of nature, is utterly powerless to direct, how- 
ever much, in those seasons of delusion when the merest nonentities 
and names find a temporary sway, it may be powerful to destroy. 

Now there is nothing which so sets off the superior skill of one 
artist, as the utter failure of every other artist in his attempts to im- 
prove upon it. And so the failure of every philanthropic or political 
experiment which proceeds on the distrust of nature's strong and 
urgent and general affections, may be regarded as an impressive 
while experimental demonstration for the matchless wisdom of 
nature's God. The abortive enterprises of wild yet benevolent 
Utopianism ; the impotent and hurtful schemes of artificial charity 
which so teem throughout the cities and parishes of our land ; the 
pernicious legislation, which mars instead of medicates, whenever it 
intermeddles with the operations of a previous and better mechanism 
than its own — have all of them misgiven only because, instead of 
conforming to nature, they have tried to divert her from her courses, 
or have thwarted and traversed the strongest of her implanted ten- 
dencies. It is thus that every attempt for taking to pieces, whether 
totally or partially, the actual framework of society, and recon- 
structing it in a new way or on new principles — is altogether fruit- 
less of good ; and often fruitful of sorest evil both to the happiness 
and virtue of the commonwealth. That economy by which the 
family system would have been entirely broken up ; and associated 

10* 



114 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 

men, living together in planned and regulated villages, would hare 
laboured for the common good, and given up their children wholly 
undomesticated to a common education — could not have been car- 
ried into effect, without overbearing the parental affection, and other 
strong propensities of nature besides ; and so, it was stifled in em- 
bryo, by the instant revolt of nature against it. That legislation, 
which, instead of overbearing, would but seduce nature from her 
principles, may subsist for generations — yet not without such dis- 
temper to society, as may at length amount to utter disorganization. 
And this is precisely the mischief which the pauperism of England 
hath inflicted on the habits of English families. It hath, by the most 
pernicious of all bribery, relaxed the ties and obligations of mutual 
relationship — exonerating parents on the one hand from the care 
and maintenance of their own offspring; and tempting children on 
the other to cast off the parents who gave them birth, and, instead 
of an asylum gladdened by the associations and sympathies of home, 
consigning them for the last closing years of weakness and decrepi- 
tude to the dreary imprisonment of a poor-house. Had the beauti- 
ful arrangements of nature not been disturbed, the relative affections 
which she herself has implanted would have been found strong 
enough, as in other countries, to have secured, through the means of 
a domestic economy alone, a provision both for young and old, in 
far greater unison with both the comfort and the virtue of families. 
The corrupt and demoralising system of England might well serve 
as a lesson to philanthropists and statesmen, of the hazard, nay of 
the positive and undoubted mischief, to which the best interests of 
humanity are exposed — when they traverse the processes of a better 
mechanism instituted by the wisdom of God, through the operation 
of another mechanism devised by a wisdom of their own. 

7. And those family relations in which all men necessarily find 
themselves at the outset of life, serve to strengthen, if they do not 
originate certain other subsequent affections of wider operation, and 
which bear with most important effect on the state and security of a 
commonwealth. Each man's house may be regarded as a pre- 
paratory school, where he acquires in boyhood, those habits of 
subordination and dependence and reverence for superiors, by which 
he all the more readily conforms in after-life, to the useful gradations 
of rank and authority and wealth which obtain in the order of 
general society. We are aware of a cosmopolitism that would un- 
settle those principles which bind together the larger commonwealth 
of a state; and that too with still greater force and frequency, than 
it would unsettle those affections which hind together the little com- 
monwealth of a family, ft is easier to undermine in the hearts oi 
subjects, their reverence for rank and station: than it is to dissolve 
the tii>s of parentage and brotherhood, or to denaturalize the hearts 
of children. Accordingly we may remember those seasons, when, 
in the form of what may be termed a moral epidemic, a em-tain 
spirit of lawlessness went abroad upon the land : and the minds o( 



THE WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 115 

men were set at liberty from the habit of that homage and respect, 
which in more pacific times, they, without pusillanimity and in spite 
of themselves, do render to family or fortune or office in society. 
We know that in specific instances, an adequate cause is too often 
given why men should cast off that veneration for rank by which 
they are naturally and habitually actuated — as, individually, when 
the prince or the noble, however elevated, may have disgraced him- 
self by his tyranny or his vices ; or, generally, when the patrician 
orders of the state may have entered into some guilty combination 
of force and fraud against the liberties of mankind, and outraged 
nature is called forth to a generous and wholesome reaction against 
the oppressors of their species. This is the revolt of one natural 
principle against the abuse of another. But the case is very dif- 
ferent — when, instead of an hostility resting on practical grounds 
and justified by the abuses of a principle, there is a sort of theoretical 
yet withal virulent and inflamed hostility abroad in the land against 
the principle itself— when wealth and rank without having abused 
their privileges, are made per se the objects of a jealous and resent- 
ful malignity — when the people all reckless and agog, because the 
dupes of designing and industrious agitators, have been led to re- 
gard every man of affluence or station as their natural enemy — and 
when, with the bulk of the community in this attitude of stout and 
sullen defiance, authority is weakened and all the natural influences 
of rank and wealth are suspended. Now nature never gives more 
effectual demonstration of her wisdom, than by the mischief which 
ensues on the abjuration of her own principles ; and never is the 
lesson thus held forth more palpable and convincing, than when re- 
spect for station and respect for office cease to be operating princi- 
ples in society. We are abundantly sensible that both mighty pos- 
sessions and the honours of an industrious ancestry may be disjoined 
from individual talent and character, — nay, that they may meet in 
the person of one so utterly weak or worthless, as that our reve- 
rence because of the adventitious circumstances in which he is 
placed, may be completely overborne by our contempt either for the 
imbecility or the moral turpitude by which he is deformed. But this 
is only the example of a contest between two principles, and of a 
victory by the superior over the inferior one. We are not, however, 
because of the inferiority of a principle to lose sight of its existence ; 
or to betray such an imperfect discernment and analysis of the hu- 
man mind, as to deny the reality of any one principle, because lia- 
ble to be modified, or kept in check, or even for the time rendered 
altogether powerless, by the interposition and the conflict of another 
principle. If, on the one hand, rank may be so disjoined from 
righteousness as to forfeit all its claims to respect — on the other 
hand, to be convinced that these claims are the objects of a natural 
and universal acknowledgment, and have therefore a foundation in 
the actual constitution of human nature, let us only consider the 



116 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 

effect, when pre-eminent rank and pre-eminent or even but fair and 
ordinary righteousness, meet together in the person of the same in- 
dividual. The effect of such a composition upon human feelings 
may well persuade us that, while a respect for righteousness ad- 
mitted by all enters as one ingredient, a respect for rank has its dis- 
tinct and substantive being also as another ingredient. We have 
the former ingredient by itself in a state of separation, and are there- 
fore most sensible of its presence, when the object of contemplation 
is a virtuous man. But we are distinctly sensible to the superaddi- 
tion of the latter ingredient, when, instead of a virtuous man, the 
object of contemplation is a virtuous monarch — though it becomes 
more palpable still, when it too is made to exist in a state of separa- 
tion, which it does, when the monarch is neither hateful for his vices 
nor very estimable for his virtues ; but stands forth in the average 
possession of those moralities and of that intellect which belong to 
common and every day humanity. Even such a monarch has only 
to appear among his subjects ; and, in all ordinary times, he will be 
received with the greetings of an honest and heartfelt loyalty, while 
any unwonted progress through his dominions is sure to be met all 
over the land, by the acclamations of a generous enthusiasm. Even 
the sturdiest demagogue, if he come within the sphere of the royal 
presence, cannot resist the infection of that common sentiment by 
which all are actuated ; but, as if struck with a moral impotency, 
he also, carried away by the fascination, is constrained to feel and to 
acknowledge its influence. Some there are, who might affect to 
despise human nature for such an exhibition, and indignantly ex- 
claim that men are born to be slaves. But the truth is, that there is 
nothing prostrate, nothing pusillanimous in the emotion at all. In- 
stead of this, it is a lofty chivalrous emotion, of which the most 
exalted spirits are the most susceptible, and which all might indulge 
without any forfeiture of their native or becoming dignity. We do 
not affirm of this respect either for the sovereignty of an empire, or 
for the chieftainship of a province — that it forms an original or con- 
stituent part of our nature. It is enough for our argument, if it be 
a universal result of the circumstances in every land, where such 
gradations of power and property are established. In a word, it is 
the doing of nature, and not of man ; and if man, in the proud and 
presumptuous exercise of his own wisdom, shall lift his rebel hand 
against the wisdom of nature, and try to uproot this principle from 
human hearts — he will find that it cannot be accomplished, without 
tearing asunder one of the strongest of those ligaments, which bind 
together the component parts of human society into a harmonious 
and well-adjusted mechanism. And it is then that the wisdom 
which made nature, will demonstrate its vast superiority (nor the 
wisdom which would mend it — when the desperate experiment of 
the latter has been tried ami found wanting. There are certain re- 
straining forces (and reverence tor rank and station is one of them) 



THE WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 117 

which never so convincingly announce their own importance to the 
peace and stability of the commonwealth, as in those seasons of 
popular frenzy, when, for a time, they are slackened or suspended. 
For it is then that the vessel of the state, as if slipped from her 
moorings, drifts headlong among the surges of insurrectionary vio- 
lence, till, as the effect of this great national effervescence, the land 
mourns over its ravaged fields and desolated families ; when, after, 
the sweeping anarchy has blown over it, and the sore chastisement 
has been undergone, the now schooled and humbled people seek 
refuge anew in those very principles, which they had before tra- 
duced and discarded : And it will be fortunate if, when again set- 
tled down in the quietude of their much needed and much longed 
for repose, there be not too vigorous a reaction of those conserva- 
tive influences, which, in the moment of their wantonness, they had 
flung so recklessly away — in virtue of which the whips may become 
scorpions, and the mild and well-balanced monarchy may become a 
grinding despotism. 

8. Next to the wisdom which nature discovers in her implanta- 
tion or developement of those affections, by which society is par- 
celled down into separate families ; is the wisdom which she dis- 
covers in those other affections, by which the territory of a nation, 
and all upon it that admits of such a distribution, is likewise par- 
celled and broken off into separate properties. Both among the 
analysts of the human mind, and among metaphysical jurists and 
politicians, there is to be found much obscure and unsatisfactory 
speculation respecting those principles, whether elementary or com- 
plex, by which property is originated and by which property is up- 
holden. We are not called to enter upon any subtle analysis for 
the purpose of ascertaining either what that is which gives birth to 
the possessory feeling on the part of an owner, or what that is 
which leads to such a universal recognition and respect for his 
rights in general society. It will be enough if we can evince that 
neither of these is a factitious product, devised by the wisdom or 
engendered by the authority of patriots and legislators, deliberating 
on what was best for the good and order of a community ; but that 
both of them are the results of a prior wisdom, employed, not in 
framing a constitution for a state, but in framing a constitution for 
human nature. It will suffice to demonstrate this, if we can show, 
that, in very early childhood, there are germinated both a sense of 
property and a respect for the property of others ; and that, long be- 
fore the children have been made the subjects of any artificial train- 
ing on the thing in question, or are at all capable of any anticipa- 
tion, or even wish, respecting the public and collective well-being of 
the country at large. Just as the affection of a mother is altogether 
special, and terminates upon the infant, without any calculation as to 
the superiority of the family system over the speculative systems of 
the cosmopolites ; and just as the appetite of hunger impels to the 



118 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 

use of food, without the least regard, for the time being, to the sup- 
port or preservation of the animal economy — so, most assuredly, do 
the desires or notions of property, and even the principles by which 
it is limited, spring up in the breasts of children, without the slightest 
apprehension, on their part, of its vast importance to the social 
economy of the world. It is the provision, not of man, but of God. 
9. That is my property, to the use and enjoyment of which I, 
without the permission of others, am free, in a manner that no other 
is ; and it is mine and mine only, in as far as this use and enjoyment 
are limited to myself — and others, apart from any grant or permis- 
sion by me, are restrained from the like use and the like enjoyment. 
Now the first tendency of a child, instead of regarding only certain 
things, as those to the use and enjoyment of which it alone is free, 
is to regard itself as alike free to the use and enjoyment of all things. 
We should say that it regards the whole of external nature as a vast 
common, but for this difference — that, instead of regarding nature 
as free to all, it rather regards it as free to itself alone. When others 
intermeddle with any one thing, in a way that suits not its fancy or 
pleasure, it resents and storms and exclaims like one bereft of its 
rights — so that, instead of regarding the universe as a common, it 
were more accurate to say, that it regarded the whole as its own 
property, or itself as the universal proprietor of all on which it may 
have cast a pleased or wishful eye. Whatever it grasps, it feels to 
be as much its own as it does the fingers which grasp it. And not 
only do its claims extend to all within its reach, but to all within the 
field of its vision — insomuch, that it will even stretch forth its hands 
to the moon in the firmament; and wreak its displeasure on the 
nurse, for not bringing the splendid bauble within its grasp. Instead 
then of saying, that, at this particular stage, it knows not how to ap- 
propriate anything, it were more accurate to say, that a universal 
tyrant and monopolist, it would claim and appropriate all things — 
exacting from the whole of nature a subserviency to its caprices ; 
and, the little despot of its establishment, giving forth its intimations 
and its mandates, with the expectation, and often with the real 
power and authority of instant obedience. We before said that its 
anger was coextensive with the capacity of sensation ; and we now 
say that, whatever its rectified notion of property may be, it has 
the original notion of an unlimited range over which itself at least 
may expatiate, without let or contradiction — the self-constituted pro- 
prietor of a domain, wide as its desires, and on which none may in- 
terfere against its will, without awakening in its bosom, somewhat 
like the sense and feeling of an injurious molestation.* 

* From what lias been already said of resentment, it would appear, that the in- 
stinctive feeling of property, and instinctive anger are in a state or co-relation with 
each other, it is l>v offence being rendered to the former, that the latter is called 
forth, Anterior to a sense of justice, our disposition is to arrogate everything — 
and it is then that we are vulnerable to anger from all points of the compass. Let 
another meddle, to our annoyance, with anything whatever, at this early stage, and 



THE WELL-BEING OP SOCIETY. 119 

10. And it is instructive to observe the process, by which this 
original notion of property is at length rectified into the subsequent 
notion, which obtains in general society. For this purpose we must 
inquire what the circumstances are which limit and determine that 
sense of property, which was quite general and unrestricted before, 
to certain special things, of which the child learns to feel that they 
are peculiarly its own — and that too, in a manner which distin- 
guishes them from all other things, which are not so felt to be its 
own. The child was blind to any such distinction before — its first 
habit being to arrogate and monopolize all things ; and the question 
is, what those circumstances are, which serve to signalize some 
things, to which, its feelings of property, now withdrawn from wide 
and boundless generality, are exclusively and specifically directed. 
It will make conclusively for our argument, if it shall appear, that 
this sense of property, even in its posterior and rectified form, is the 
work of nature, operating on the hearts of children ; and not the 
work of man, devising, in the maturity of his political wisdom, such 
a regulated system of things, as might be best for u the order and welk 
being of society. 

11. This matter then might be illustrated by the contests of very 
young children, and by the manner in which these are adjusted to 
the acquiescence and satisfaction of them all. We might gather a 
lesson even from the quarrel which sometimes arises among them, 
about a matter so small as their right to the particular chairs of a 
room. If one for example, have just sat on a chair, though only 
for a few minutes, and then left it for a moment — it will feel itself 
injured, if, on returning, it shall find the chair in the possession of 
another occupier. The brief occupation which it has already had, 
gives it the feeling of a right to the continued occupation of it — 
insomuch, that, when kept out by an intruder, it has the sense of 
having been wrongously dispossessed. The particular chair of 
which it was for some time the occupier, is the object of a special 
possessory affection or feeling, which it attaches to no other chair ; 
and by which it stands invested in its own imagination, as being, 
for the time, the only rightful occupier. This then may be regarded 
as a very early indication of that possessory feeling, which is after- 
wards of such extensive influence in the economy of social life — 
a feeling so strong, as often of itself to constitute a plea, not only 
sufficient in the apprehension of the claimant, but sufficient in the 
general sense of the community, for substantiating the right of many 
a proprietor. 

12. But there is still another primitive ingredient which enters 
into this feeling of property; and we call it primitive, because ante- 

we shall feel the very motion of anger which in a higher stage of moral and 
mental cultivation, is only called forth by its meddling with that which really and 
rightfully belongs to us. The sense of justice, instead of originating either the 
emotion of anger, or a sense of property, has the effect to limit and restrain both. 



120 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 

rior to the sanctions or the application of law. Let the child in 
addition to the plea that it had been the recent occupier of the chair 
in question, be able further to advance an argument for its right — 
that, with its own hands, it had just placed it beside the fire, and 
thereby given additional value to the occupation of it. This reason 
is both felt by the child itself, and will be admitted by other children 
even of a very tender age, as a strengthener of its claim. It exem- 
plifies the second great principle on which the natural right of pro- 
perty rests — even that every man is proprietor of the fruit of his own 
labour; and that to whatever extent he may have impressed additional 
value on any given thing by the work of his own hands, to that extent, 
at least, he should be held the owner of it. 

13. This then seems the way, in which the sense of his right to 
any given thing arises in the heart of the claimant; but something 
more must be said to account for the manner in which this right is 
deferred to by his companions. It accounts for the manner, in which 
the possessory feeling arises in the hearts of one and all of them, 
when similarly circumstanced; but it does not account for the man- 
ner in which this possessory feeling, in the heart of each, is respect- 
ed by all his fellows — so that he is suffered to remain, in the secure 
and unmolested possession of that which he rightfully claims. The 
circumstances which originate the sense of property, serve to ex- 
plain this one fact, the existence of a possessory feeling, in the 
heart of every individual who is actuated thereby. But the defer- 
ence rendered to this feeling by any other individuals, is another and 
a distinct fact ; and we must refer to a distinct principle from that 
of the mere sense of property, for the explanation of it. This new 
or distinct principle is a sense of equity — or that which prompts to 
likeness or equality, between the treatment which I should claim of 
others and my treatment of them ; and in virtue of which, I should 
hold it unrighteous and unfair, if I disregarded or inflicted violence 
on the claim of another, which, in the same circumstances with him, 
I am conscious that I should have felt, and would have advanced 
for myself. Had I been the occupier of that chair, in like manner 
with the little claimant who is now insisting on the possession of it, I 
should have felt and claimed precisely as he is a doing. Still more, 
had I like him placed it beside the fire, I should have felt what he 
is now expressing — a still more distinct and decided right to it. If 
conscious of an identity of feeling between me and another in the 
same circumstances — then let my moral nature be so far evolved 
as to feel the force of this consideration: and, under the operation 
of a sense of equity, I shall defer the very claim, which 1 should 
myself have urged, had I been similarly placed. And it is marvel- 
lous, how soon the hearts of children discover a sensibility to this 
consideration, and how soon they are capable of becoming obedient 
to the power of it. It is, in fact, the principle on which a thousand 
contests of the nursery arc settled, ami many thousand more are 



THE WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 121 

prevented ; what else would be an incessant scramble of rival and 
ravenous cupidity, being mitigated and reduced to a very great, 
though unknown and undefinable extent, ^ by the sense of justice 
coming into play. It is altogether worthy of remark, however, that 
the sense of property is anterior to the sense of justice, and comes 
from an anterior and distinct source in our nature. It is not justice 
which originates the proprietary feeling in the heart of an individual. 
It only arbitrates between the proprietary claims and feelings of 
different individuals — after these had previously arisen by the opera- 
tion of other principles in the human constitution. Those writers on 
jurisprudence are sadly and inextricably puzzled, who imagine that 
justice presided over the first ordinations of property — utterly at a 
loss as they must be, to find out the principle that could 'guide her 
initial movements. Justice did not create property; but found it 
already created — her only office being to decide between the ante- 
cedent claims of one man and another : And, in the discharge of 
this office, she but compares the rights which each of them can 
allege, as founded either on the length of undisputed and undisposed 
of possession, or on the value they had impressed on the thing at 
issue by labour of their own. In other words, she bears respect to 
those two great primitive ingredients by which property is consti- 
tuted, before that she had ever bestowed any attention, or given any 
award whatever regarding it. The matter may be illustrated by 
the peculiar relation in which each man stands to his own body, as 
being, in a certain view, the same with the peculiar relation in 
which each man stands to his own property. His sensitive feelings 
are hurt, by the infliction of a neighbour's violence upon the one; 
and his proprietary feelings are hurt by the encroachment of a 
neighbour's violence upon the other. But justice no more originated 
the proprietary, than it did the sensitive feelings — no more gave me 
the peculiar affection which 1 feel for the property I now occupy as 
my own, than it gave me my peculiar affection for the person which 
I now occupy as my own. Justice pronounces on the iniquity of 
any hurtful infliction by us on the person of another — seeing that 
such an infliction upon our own person, to which we stand similarly 
related, would be resented by ourselves. And Justice, in like man- 
ner, pronounces on the inequality or iniquity of any hurtful encroach- 
ment by us on the property of another — also seeing, that such an 
encroachment upon our own property, to which we stand similarly 
related, would be felt and resented by ourselves. Man feels one 
kind of pain, when the hand which belongs to him is struck by 
another; and he feels another kind of pain, when some article which 
it holds, and which he conceives to belong to him, is wrested by 
another from its grasp. But it was not justice which instituted 
either the animal economy in the one case, or the proprietary eco- 
nomy in the other. Justice found them both already instituted. Pro- 
perty is not the creation of justice ; but is in truth a prior creation. 

11 



122 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 

Justice did not form this material, or command it into being ; but 
in the course of misunderstanding or controversy between man and 
man, property, a material pre-existent or already made, forms the 
subject of many of those questions which are put into her hands. 

14. But, recurring to the juvenile controversy which we have 
already imagined for the purpose of illustration, there is still a third 
way in which we may conceive it to be conclusively and defini- 
tively settled. The parents may interpose their authority, and assign 
his own particular chair to each member of the household. The in- 
stant effect of such a decree, in fixing and distinguishing the respec- 
tive properties in all time coming, has led, we believe, to a miscon- 
ception regarding the real origin of property— in consequence of a 
certain obscure analogy between this act of parents or legislators 
over the family of a household, and a supposed act of rulers or legis- 
lators over the great family of a nation. Now, not only have the 
parents this advantage over the magistrates — that the property 
which they thus distribute is previously their own ; but there is both 
a power of enforcement and a disposition to acquiescence within the 
limits of a home, which exist in an immeasurably weaker degree 
within the limits of a kingdom. Still, with all this superiority on the 
part of the household legislators, it would even be their wisdom, to 
conform their decree as much as possible to those natural princi- 
ples and feelings of property, which had been in previous exercise 
among their children — to have respect, in fact, when making distri- 
bution of the chairs, both to their habits of previous occupation, and 
to the additional value which any of them may have impressed upon 
their favourite seats, by such little arts of upholstery or mechanics, 
as they are competent to practice. A wise domestic legislator would 
not thwart, but rather defer to the claims and expectations which 
nature had previously founded. And still more a national legislator 
or statesman, would evince his best wisdom, by, instead of travers- 
ing the constitution of property which nature had previously esta- 
blished, greatly deferring to that sense of a possessory right, which 
long and unquestioned occupation so universally gives ; and greatly 
deferring to the principle, that, whatever the fruit of each man's la- 
bour may be, it rightfully, and therefore should legitimately belong 
to him. A government could, and at the termination of a revolu- 
tionary storm, often does, traverse these principles : but not without 
the excitement of a thousand heart-burnings, and so the establish- 
ment of a strong counteraction to its own authority in the heart of 
its dominions. It is the dictate of sound policy — that the natural, 
on the one hand, and the legal or political on the other, should quad- 
rate as much as possible. And thus, instead of saying with Hr. 
Paley that property derived its constitution and being from the law 
of the land — we should say that law never exhibits a better under- 
standing of her own place and functions, than when, founding on 
materials already provided, she feels that her wisest part is but to act 



THE WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 123 

as an auxiliary, and to ratify that prior constitution which nature 
had put into her hands. 

15. In this exposition which we have now attempted of the origin 
and rights of property, we are not insensible to the mighty use of 
law. By its power of enforcement, it perpetuates or defends from 
violation that existent order of things which itself had established, or, 
rather, which itself had ratified. Even though at its first ordina- 
tions it had contravened those natural principles which enter into the 
foundation of property, these very principles will, in time, re-appear 
in favour of the new system, and yield to it a firmer and a stronger 
support with every day of its continuance. Whatever fraud or force 
may have been concerned at the historical commencement of the 
present and actual distribution of property — the then new possessors 
have at length become old ; and, under the canopy and protection of 
law, the natural rights have been superadded to the factitious or the 
political. Law has guaranteed to each proprietor a long continued 
occupation, till a strong and inveterate possessory feeling has taken 
root and arisen in every heart. And secure of this occupation, each 
may, in the course of years, have mixed up to an indefinite amount, 
the improvements of his own skill and labour with those estates — 
which, as the fruit whether of anarchy or of victorious invasion, had 
fallen into his hands. So that these first and second principles of 
natural jurisprudence, whatever violence may have been done to 
them at the overthrow of a former regime, are again fostered into 
all their original efficacy and strength during the continuance of a 
present one. Insomuch, that if, at the end of half a century, those 
outcasts of a great revolutionary hurricane, the descendants of a con- 
fiscated noblesse, were to rally and combine for the recovery of their 
ancient domains — they would be met in the encounter, not by the 
force of the existing government only, but by the outraged and. re- 
sentful feelings of the existing proprietors, whose possessory and 
prescriptive rights, now nurtured into full and firm establishment, 
would, in addition to the sense of interest, enlist even the sense of 
justice upon their side. Apart from the physical, did we but com- 
pute the moral forces which enter into such a conflict, it will often 
be found that the superiority is in favour of the actual occupiers. 
Those feelings, on the one hand, which are associated with the re- 
collection of a now departed ancestry and their violated rights, are 
found to be inoperative and feeble, when brought into comparison or 
collision w T ith that strength which nature has annexed to the feelings 
of actual possession. Regarded as but a contest of sentiment alone, 
the disposition to recover is not so strong as the disposition to retain. 
The recollection that these were once my parental acres, though 
wrested from the hand of remote ancestors by anarchists and ma- 
rauders, would not enlist so great or so practical a moral force on 
the aggressive side of a new warfare, as the reflection that these are 
now my possessed acres, which, though left but by immediate an- 



124 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 

cestors, I have been accustomed from infancy to call my own, would 
enlist on the side of the defensive. In the course of generations, 
those sedative influences, which tend to the preservation of the ex- 
isting order, wax stronger and stronger ; and those disturbing influ- 
ences, which tend to the restoration of the ancient order, wax 
weaker and weaker — till man at last ceases to charge himself with 
a task so infinitely above his strength, as the adjustment of the quar- 
rels and the accumulated wrongs of the centuries which have gone 
by. In other words, the constitution of law in regard to property, 
which is the work of man, may be so framed as to sanction, and, 
therefore, to encourage the enormities which have been perpetrated 
by the force of arms — while the constitution of the mind in regard 
to property, which is the work of nature, is so framed, as, with con- 
servative virtue, to be altogether on the side of perpetuity and peace. 
16. Had a legislator of supreme wisdom and armed with despo- 
tic power been free to establish the best scheme for augmenting the 
wealth and the comforts of human society — he could have devised 
nothing more effectual than that existing constitution of property, 
which obtains so generally throughout the world ; and by which, 
each man, secure within the limits of his own special and recognised 
possession, might claim as being rightly and originally his, the fruit 
of all the labour which he may choose to expend upon it. But this 
was not left to the discovery of man, or to any ordinations of his 
consequent upon that discovery. He was not led to this arrange- 
ment by the experience of its consequences ; but prompted to it by 
certain feelings, as much prior to that experience, as the appetite of 
hunger is prior to our experience of the use of food. In this matter, 
too, the wisdom of nature has anticipated the wisdom of man, by 
providing him with original principles of her own. Man was not 
left to find out the direction in which his benevolence might be most 
productive of enjoyment to others ; but he has been irresistibly, and, 
as far as he is concerned, blindly impelled thereto by means of a 
family affection — which, concentrating his efforts on a certain few, 
has made them a hundred times more prolific of benefit to mankind 
than if all had been left to provide the best they may for the whole, 
without a precise or determinate impulse to any. And in like man- 
ner, man was not left to find out the direction in which his industry 
miglft be made most productive of the materials of enjoyment ; but, 
with the efforts of each concentrated by means of a special p< 
sory affection on a certain portion of the territory, the universal pro- 
duce is incalculably greater than under a medley system of indiffer- 
ence, with every field alike open to all, and. therefore, alike unre- 
claimed from the wilderness — unless one man shall consent to v labour 
it in seed time, although another should reap the fruil of his labour 
in the harvest. It is good thai man was not trusted with the whole 
disentanglemenl of this chaos — but thai a natural jurisprudence, 
founded on the constitution of the human mind, so far advances and 



THE WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 125 

facilitates the task of that artificial jurisprudence, which frames the 
various codes or constitutions of human law. It is well that nature 
has connected with the past and actual possession of anything, so 
strong a sense of right to its continued possession ; and that she has 
so powerfully backed this principle, by means of another as strongly 
and universally felt as the former, even that each man has a right 
to possess the fruit of his own industry. The human legislator has 
little more to do than to conform, or rather to promulgate and make 
known his determination to abide by principles already felt and re- 
cognised by all men. Wanting these, he could have fixed nothing, 
he could have perpetuated nothing. The legal constitution of every 
state, in its last and finished form, comes from the hand of man. But 
the great and natural principles, which secure for these constitutors 
the acceptance of whole communities — implanted in man from his 
birth, or at least evincing their presence and power in very early 
childhood — these are what bespeak the immediate hand of God. 

17. But these principles, strongly conservative though they be, on 
the side of existing property do not at all times prevent a revolu- 
tion — which is much more frequently, however, a revolution 
of power than of property. But when such is the degree of 
violence abroad in society, that even the latter is effected — this 
most assuredly, does not arise from any decay or intermission of 
the possessory feelings, that we have just been expounding; but 
from the force and fermentation of other causes which prevail in 
opposition to these, and in spite of them. And, after that such 
revolution has done its work and ejected the old dynasty of pro- 
prietors, the mischief to them may be as irrecoverable, as if their 
estates had been wrested from them, by an irruption from the waters 
of the ocean, by earthquake, or the sweeping resistless visitation of 
any other great physical calamity. The moral world has its epochs 
and its transitions as well as the natural, during which the ordinary 
laws are not suspended but only for the time overborne ; but this 
does not hinder the recurrence and full reinstatement of these laws 
during the long eras of intermediate repose. And it is marvellous, 
with what certainty and speed, the conservative influences, of which 
we have treated, gather around a new system of things, with what- 
ever violence, and even injustice, it may have been ushered into the 
world — insomuch that, under the guardianship of the powers which 
be, those links of a natural jurisprudence, now irretrievably torn 
from the former, are at length transferred in all their wonted tena- 
city to the existing proprietors ; riveting each of them to his own 
several property, and altogether establishing a present order of as 
great firmness and strength as ever belonged to the order which 
went before it, but which is now superseded and forgotten. It is 
well that nature hath annexed so potent a charm to actual posses- 
sion ; and a charm which strengthens with every year and day of 
its continuance. This may not efface the historical infamy of many 

11* 



126 AFFECTIOXS WHICH CONDUCE TO 

ancient usurpations. But the world cannot be kept in a state of per- 
petual effervescence ; and now that the many thousand wrongs of 
years gone by, as well as the dead on whom they have been in- 
flicted, are fading into deep oblivion — it is well for the repose of its 
living generations, that, in virtue of the strong possessory feelings 
which nature causes to arise in the hearts of existing proprietors 
and to be sympathized with by all other men, the possessors de facto 
have at length the homage done to them of possessors de jure; 
strong in their own consciousness of right, and strong in the re- 
cognition thereof by all their contemporaries. 

18. But ere we have completed our views upon this subject, we 
must shortly dwell on a principle of very extensive application in 
morals; and which itself forms a striking example of a most beau- 
teous and beneficent adaptation in the constitution of the human mind 
to the needs and the w 7 ell-being of human society. It may be thus 
announced, briefly and generally: — however strong the special 
affections of our nature may be, yet, if along with them there be but 
a principle of equity in the mind, then, these affections, so far from 
concentrating our selfish regards upon their several objects to the 
disregard and injury of others, will but enhance our respect and our 
sympathy for the like affections in other men. 

19. This may be illustrated, in the first instance, by the equity 
observed between man and man, in respect to the bodies which they 
wear — endowed, as we may suppose them to be, with equal, at 
least with like capacities of pain and suffering from external vio- 
lence. To inflict that very pain upon another which I should resent 
or shrink from in agony, if inflicted upon myself — this to all sense 
of justice appears a very palpable iniquity. Let us now conceive 
then, that the sentient framework of each of the parties was made 
twice more sensitive, or twice more alive to pain and pungency of 
feeling than it actually is. In one view it may be said that eacli 
w r ould become twice more selfish than before. Each would feel a 
double interest in warding oft' external violence from himself? and 
so be doubly more anxious for his own protection and safety. But. 
with the very same moral nature as ever, each, now aware of the 
increased sensibility, not merely in himself but in his fellows, would 
feel doubly restrained from putting forth upon him a hand of vio- 
lence. So, grant him to have but a sense of equity — and. exactly 
in proportion as he became tender of himself, would he become len- 
der of another also. If the now superior exquisiteness of his own 
frame afforded him a topic, on which, what may be called his 
selfishness would feel more intensely than before — the now superior 
exquisiteness of another's frame would, in like manner, afford a 
topic, on which his sense of justice would feel more intensely than 
before Il is even as when men of very acnle sensibilities company 
together — each has, on thai very account, a more delicate and re- 
fined consideration for the feelings of all the rest: and it is only 



THE WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 127 

among men of tougher pellicle and rigid fibre, where coarseness and 
freedom prevail, because there coarseness and freedom are not felt 
to be offensive. Grant me but a sense of equity — and the very fine- 
ness of my sensations which weds me so much more to the care and 
the defence of my own person, would also, on the imagination of a 
similar fineness in a fellow-man, restrain me so much more from 
the putting forth of any violence upon his person. If I had any com- 
passion at all, or any horror at the injustice of inflicting upon ano- 
ther, that which 1 should feel to be a cruelty, if inflicted upon my- 
self — I would experience a greater recoil of sympathy from the blow 
that was directed to the surface of a recent wound upon another, 
precisely as I would feel a severer agony in a similar infliction upon 
myself. So, there is nothing in the quickness of my physical sensi- 
bilities, and by which I am rendered more alive to the care and the 
guardianship of my ow 7 n person — there is nothing in this to blunt, 
far less to extinguish my sensibilities for other men. Nay, it may 
give a quicker moral delicacy to all the sympathies w T hieh I before 
felt for them. And especially, the more sensitive I am to the hurts 
and the annoyances which others bring upon my own person, the 
more scrupulous may I be of being in any way instrumental to the 
hurt or the annoyance of others. 

20. The same holds true between man and man, not merely of 
the bodies which they wear, but of the families which belong to 
them. Each man, by nature, hath a strong affection for his own 
offspring — the young whom he hath reared, and with whom the 
daily habit of converse under the same roof, hath strengthened all 
the original affinities that subsisted between them. But one man, a 
parent, knows that another man, also a parent, is actuated by the 
very same appropriate sensibilities towards his offspring ; and nought 
remains but to graft on these separate and special affections in each, 
a sympathy between one neighbour and another; that there might 
be a mutual respect for each other's family affections. After the 
matter is advanced thus far, we can be at no loss to perceive, that, 
in proportion to the strength of the parental affection with each, will 
be the strength of the fellow-feeling that each has with the affection 
of the other — insomuch that he who bears in his heart the greatest 
tenderness for his own offspring, would feel the greatest revolt 
against an act of severity towards the offspring of his friend. Now 
it is altogether so with the separate and original sense of property, 
in each of two neighbours, and a sense of justice grafted thereupon 
— even as a mutual neighbourlike sympathy may be grafted on the 
separate family affections. One man a proprietor, linked by many 
ties, with that which he hath possessed and been in the habitual use 
and management of for years, is perfectl} r conscious of the very 
same kind of affinity, between another man a proprietor and that 
which belongs to him. It is not the justice which so links him to 
his own property, any more than it is the sympathy with his neigh- 



128 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 

bour which has linked him to his own children. But the justice 
hath given him a respectful feeling for his neighbour's rights, even 
as the sympathy would give him a tenderness for his neighbour's 
offspring. And so far from there being aught in the strength of the 
appropriating principle that relaxes this deference to the rights of 
his neighbour, the second principle may in fact grow with the 
growth, and strengthen with the strength of the first one. 

21. For the purpose of maintaining an equitable regard, or an 
equitable conduct to others — it is no more necessary that we should 
reduce or extirpate the special affections of our nature, than that, 
in order to make room for the love of another, we should discharge 
from the bosom all love of ourselves. So far from this, the affec- 
tion we have for ourselves, or for those various objects which by 
the constitution of our nature we are formed to seek after and to de- 
light in — is the measure of that duteous regard which w r e owe to 
others, and of that duteous respect which we owe to all their rights 
and all their interests. The very highest behest of social morality, 
while at the same time the most comprehensive of its rules, is that 
we should love our neighbour as we do ourselves. Love to our 
neighbour is the thing which this rule measures off — and love to our- 
selves is the thing which it measures by. These two then, the social 
and the selfish affections, instead of being as they too often are in- 
versely, might under a virtuous regimen be directly proportional to 
each other. At all events the way to advance or magnify the one, is 
not surely to weaken or abridge the other. The strength of certain 
prior affections which by nature we do have, is the standard of cer- 
tain posterior affections which morality tells that we ought to have. 
Morality neither planted these prior affections, nor does she enjoin 
us to extirpate them. They were inserted by the hand of nature 
for the most useful purposes ; and morality, instead of demolishing 
her work, applies the rule and compass to it for the construction of 
her own. 

22. It was not justice which presided over the original distribu- 
tion of property. It was not she who assigned to each man his 
separate field, any more than it was she who assigned to each man 
his separate family. It was nature that did both, by investing with 
such power those anterior circumstances of habit and possession, 
which gave rise — first, to the special love that each man bears to 
his own children, and secondly, to the special love that each man 
bears to his own acres. Had there been no such processes before- 
hand, for thus isolating the parental regards of each on that certain 
household group which nature placed under his roof, and the pro- 
prietary regaras of each on that certain local territory which 
history casts into his possession : (n\ had each man been so con- 
stituted, that, instead ot certain children whom he felt to be his own, 
he was alike loose to them or susceptible of a like random and indis- 
criminate affection for any children ; or, instead ot' certain lands 



THE WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 129 

which he felt to be his own, he was alike loose to them or suscepti- 
ble of a like tenacious adherence to any lands — had such been the 
rudimental chaos which nature put into the hands of man for the 
exercise of his matured faculties, neither his morality nor his wisdom 
would have enabled him to unravel it. But nature prepared for 
man an easier task ; and when justice arose to her work, she found 
a territory so far already partitioned, and each proprietor linked by 
a strong and separate tie of peculiar force to that part which he 
himself did occupy. She found this to be the land which one man 
wont to possess and cultivate, and that to be the land which ano- 
ther man wont to possess and cultivate — the destination, not origi- 
nally, of justice, but of accident, which her office nevertheless is not 
to reverse, but to confirm. We hold it a beautiful part of our con- 
stitution, that, the firmer the tenacity wherewith the first man ad- 
heres to his own, once that justice takes her place among the other 
principles of his nature, the prompter will be his recognition of the 
second man's right to his own. If each man sat more loosely to his 
own portion, each would have viewed more loosely the right of his 
neighbour to the other portion. The sense of property, anterior to 
justice, exists in the hearts of all ; and the principle of justice, sub- 
sequent to property, does not extirpate~these special affections, but 
only arbitrates between them. In proportion to the felt strength of 
the proprietary affection in the hearts of each, will be the strength 
of that deference which each, in so far as justice has the mastery 
over him, renders to the rights and the property of his neighbour. 
These are the principles of the histoire raisonnee, that has been 
more or less exemplified in all the countries of the world ; and 
which might still be exemplified in the appropriation of a desert 
island. If we had not had the prior and special determinations of 
nature, justice would have felt the work of appropriation to be an 
inextricable problem. If we had not had justice, with each man obey- 
ing only the impulse of his own affections and unobservant of the 
like affection of others, we should have been kept in a state of con- 
stant and interminable war. Under the guidance of nature and 
justice together, the whole earth might have been parcelled out, with- 
out conflict and without interference. 

23. If a strong self-interest in one's person may not only be con- 
sistent with, but, by the aid of the moral sense, may be conducive 
to a proportionally strong principle of forbearance from all injury 
to the persons of other men — why may not the very same law be at 
work in regard to property as to person I The fondness wherewith 
one nourishes and cherishes his own flesh, might, we have seen, 
enhance his sympathy and his sense of justice for that of other 
men ; and so, we affirm, might it be of the fondness wherewith one 
nourishes and cherishes his own field. The relation in which man 
stands to his own body, was anterior to the first dawnings of his 
moral nature ; and his instinctive sensibilities of pain and suffering, 



130 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 

when any violence is inflicted, were also anterior. But as his moral 
perceptions expand, and he considers others beside himself who are 
similarly related to their bodies — these very susceptibilities not only 
lead him to recoil from the violence that is offered to himself; but 
they lead him to refrain from the offering of violence to other men. 
They may have an air of selfishness at the first; yet so far from 
being obstacles in the way of justice, they are indispensable helps 
to it. And so may each man stand related to a property as well as 
to a person ; and by ties that bind him to it, ere he thought of his 
neighbour's property at all — by instinctive affections, which operated 
previously to a sense of justice in his bosom ; and yet w r hich, so far 
from acting as a thwart upon his justice to others, gave additional 
impulse to all his observations of it. He feels what has passed 
within his own bosom, in reference to the field that he has possessed, 
and has laboured, and that has for a time been respected by society 
as his ; and he is aware of the very same feeling in the breast of a 
neighbour in relation to another field ; and in very proportion to the 
strength of his own feeling, does he defer to that of his fellow-men. 
It is at this point that the sense of justice begins to operate — not for 
the purpose of leading him to appropriate his own, for this he has 
already done ; but for the purpose of leading him to respect the pro- 
perty of others. It was not justice which gave to either of them at 
the first that feeling of property, which each has in his own separate 
domain ; any more than it was justice which gave to either of them 
that feeling of affection which each has for his own children. It is 
after, and not before these feelings are formed, that justice steps 
in with her golden rule, of not doing to others as we would not 
others to do unto us; and, all-conscious as we are of the dislike 
and resentment we should feel on the invasion of our property, 
it teaches to defer to a similar dislike and a similar resentment 
in other men. And, so far from this original and instinctive re- 
gard for his property which is my own serving at all to impair, 
when once the moral sense comes into play, it enhances un- 
equitable regard for the property of others. It is just with me the 
proprietor, as it is with me the parent. My affection for my own 
family does not prompt me to appropriate the family of another: 
but it strengthens my sympathetic consideration for the tenderness 
and feeling of their own parent towards them. My affection for 
my own field does not incline me to seize upon that o( another 
man; but it strengthens my equitable consideration for all the 
attachments and claims which its proprietor has upon it. In pro- 
portion to the strength of that instinct which binds me to my own 
offspring, is the sympathy 1 feci with the tenderness of other pa- 
rents. In proportion to the strength of that instinct which hinds me 
to my own property, is the sense of equity 1 led towards the rights 
of all Other proprietors. It was not justice which gave either the 
one instinct or the other; but justice teaches each man to bear re- 



THE WELL-BEING Or SOCIETY. 131 

spect to that instinct in another, which he feels to be of powerful 
operation in his own bosom. 

24. It is in virtue of my sentient nature that I am so painfully 
alive to the violence done upon my own body, as to recoil from the 
infliction of it upon myself. And it is in virtue of my moral nature, 
that, alive to the pain of other bodies than my own, I refrain from 
the infliction of it upon them. It it not justice which gives the 
sensations ; but justice pronounces on the equal respect that is due 
to the sensations of all. Neither does justice give the sensations of 
property, but it finds them ; and pronounces on the respect which 
each owes to the sensations of all the rest. It was not justice which 
gave the personal feeling ; neither is it justice which gives the pos- 
sessory feeling. Justice has nothing to do with the process by 
which this body came to be my own ; and although now, perhaps, 
there is not a property, at least in the civilized world, which may 
not have passed into the hand of their actual possessor, by a series 
of purchases, over which justice had the direction — yet there was 
a time when it might have been said, that justice has had nothing to 
do with the process by which this garden came to be my own ; and 
yet, then as well as now, it would have been the utterance of a true 
feeling, that he who touches this garden, touches the apple of mine 
eye. And it is as much the dictate of justice, that we shall respect 
the one sensation as the other. He, indeed, who has the greatest 
sensitiveness, whether about his own person or his own property, 
will with an equal principle of justice in his constitution, have the 
greatest sympathy, both for the personal and the proprietary rights 
of others. This view of it saves all the impracticable mysticism 
that has gathered around the speculations of those, who conceive of 
justice, as presiding over the first distributions of property ; and so 
have fallen into the very common mistake, of trying to account for 
that which had been provided for by the wisdom of nature, as if it 
had been provided by the wisdom and the principle of man. At the 
first allocations of property, justice may have had no hand in them. 
They were altogether fortuitous. One man set himself down, 
perhaps on a better soil than his neighbour, and chalked out for him- 
self a larger territory, at a time when there was none who inter- 
fered or who offered to share it with him; and so he came to as 
firm a possessory feeling in reference to his wider domain, as the 
other has in reference to his smaller. Our metaphysical jurists are 
sadly puzzled to account for the original inequalities of property, 
and for the practical acquiescence of all men in the actual and very 
unequal distribution of it — having recourse to an original social 
compact, and to other fictions alike visionary. But if there be truth 
in our theory, it is just as easy to explain, why the humble proprietor, 
would no more think of laying claim to certain acres of his rich 
neighbour's estate because it was larger than his own, than he would 
think of laying claim to certain children of his neighbour's family 



132 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 

because it was larger — or even of laying claim to certain parts of 
his neighbour's person because it was larger. He is sufficiently ac- 
quainted with his own nature to be aware, that, were the circum- 
stances changed, he 'should feel precisely as his affluent neighbour 
does; and he respects the feeling accordingly. He knows that, if 
himself at the head of a larger property, he would have the same 
affection for all its fields 1 that the actual proprietor has ; and that, if 
at the head of a larger family, he would have the same affection 
with the actual parent for all its children. It is by making justice 
come in at the right place, that is, not prior to these strong affections 
of nature but posterior to them, that the perplexities of this inquiry 
are done away. The principle on which it arbitrates, is, not the 
comparative magnitude of the properties, but the relative feelings of 
each actual possessor towards each actual property ; and if it find 
these in every instance, to be the very feelings which all men would 
have in the circumstances belonging to that instance — it attempts no 
new distribution, but gives its full sanction to the distribution which 
is already before it. This is the real origin and upholder of that 
conservative influence which binds together the rich and the poor in 
society ; and thus it is that property is respected throughout all its 
gradations. 

25. It is from the treatment of an original as if it were a derived 
affection, that the whole obscurity on this topic has arisen. It is 
quite as impossible to educe the possessory feeling from an anterior 
sense of justice, or from a respect for law — as it is to educe the pa- 
rental feeling from a previous* and comprehensive regard for the 
interests of humanity. There is no doubt that the general good is 
best promoted by the play of special family affections ; but this is 
the work of nature, and not the work of man. And there is no 
doubt that the wealth and comfort of society are inconceivably aug- 
mented by those influences, which bind each individual nearly as 
much to his own property, as he is bound to his own offspring. But 
in the one case as well as the other, there were certain instinctive 
regards that came first, and the office of justice is altogether a sub- 
sequent one ; not to put these regards into the breast of any, but to 
award the equal deference that is due to the regards of all — inso- 
much that the vast domain of one individual, perhaps transmitted 
to him from generation to generation, throughout the lengthened 
scries of an ancestry, whose feet arc now upon the earth, hut whose 
top reaches the clouds and is there lost in distant and obscure 
antiquity — is, to the last inch of its margin, under a guardianship of 
justice as unviolable, as that which assures protection and owner- 
ship to the humble possessor of one solitary acre. The right of 
property is not the less deferred i<>. either because its divisions are 
unequal, or because its origin is unknown. And, even when history 
tells us that it is founded on some deed of iniquitous usurpation, 
there is a charm in the continued occupation, that prevails and has 



THE WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 133 

the mastery over our most indignant remembrance of the villany of 
other days. It says much for the strength of the possessory feeling, 
that, even in less than half a century, it will, if legal claims are 
meanwhile forborne, cast into obliteration, all the deeds, and even 
all the delinquencies, which attach to the commencement of a pro- 
perty. At length the prescriptive right bears everything before it, 
as by the consuetude of English, by the use and wont of Scottish 
law. And therefore, once more, instead of saying, with Dr. Paley 
that it is the law of the land which constitutes the basis of property 
— the law exhibits her best wisdom, when she founds on the mate- 
rials of that basis, which nature and the common sense of mankind 
have laid before her. 

26. Dr. Thomas Brown, we hold to have been partly right and 
partly wrong upon this subject. He evinces a true discernment of 
what may be termed the pedigree of our feelings in regard to pro- 
perty, when he says and says admirably well — that, *" Justice is 
not what constitutes property ; it is a virtue which presupposes pro- 
perty and respects it however constituted." And further, that — 
"justice as a moral virtue is not the creation of property, but the 
conformity of our actions to those views of property, which vary in 
the various states of society." But it is not as he would affirm, it 
is not because obedience to a system of law, of which the evident 
tendency is to the public good, is the object of our moral regard — 
it is not this, which moralises, if w T e may be allowed such an appli- 
cation of the term, or rather, which constitutes the virtuousness of 
our respect to another man's property. This is the common mis- 
take of those moralists, who would ascribe every useful direction 
or habitude of man to some previous and comprehensive view 
taken by himself of what is best for the good of the individual or 
the good of society ; instead of regarding such habitude as the fruit 
of a special tendency impressed direct by the hand of nature, on a 
previous and comprehensive view taken by its author, and therefore 
bearing on it a palpable indication both of the goodness and the 
wisdom of nature's God — even as hunger is the involuntary result 
of man's physical constitution, and not of any care or consideration 
by man on the uses of food. The truth is — when, deferring to an- 
other's right of property, we do not think of the public good in the 
matter at all. But we are glad, in the first instance, each to possess 
and to use and to improve all that we are able to do without moles- 
tation, whether that freedom from molestation has been secured to 
us by law or by the mere circumstances of our state ; and, in vir- 
tue of principles, not resulting from anticipations of the wisdom or 
any views of general philanthropy, (because developed in early 
childhood and long before we are capable of being either philan- 
thropists or legislators) we feel a strong link of ownership with that 

* Lecture lxxxiii. 
12 



134 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 

which we have thus possessed and used, and on which we have be- 
stowed our improvements; and we are aware that another man, in 
similar relation with another property, will feel towards it in like 
manner ; and a sense of justice, or its still more significant and in- 
structive name, of equity, suggests this equality betw r een me and him 
— that, in the same manner as I would regard his encroachment on 
myself as injurious, so it were alike injurious, in me to make a similar 
encroachment upon my neighbour. 

27. We have expatiated thus long on the origin and rights of pro- 
perty — because of all subjects, it is the one, regarding which our 
writers on jurisprudence have sent forth the greatest amount of 
doubtful and unsatisfactory metaphysics. They labour and are in 
great perplexity to explain even the rise of the feeling or desire that 
is in the mind regarding it. They reason, as if the very conception 
of property was that, which could not have entered into the heart 
of man without a previous sense of justice. In this we hold them 
to have antedated matters wrong. The conception of property is 
aboriginal ; and the office of justice is not to put it into any man's 
head ; but to arbitrate among the rival feelings of cupidity, or the 
arrogant and overpassing claims that are apt to get into all men's 
heads — not to initiate man into the notion of property ; but, in fact, 
to limit and restrain his notion of it — not to teach the creatures who 
at first conceive themselves to have nothing, what that is which 
they might call their own ; but to teach the creatures whose first 
and earliest tendency is to call everything their own, what that is 
which they must refrain from and concede to others. When justice 
rises to authority among men, her office is, not to wed each indivi- 
dual by the link of property to that which he formerly thought it 
was not competent for him to use or to possess ; but it is to divorce 
each individual from that, which it is not rightly competent for him 
to use or to possess — and thus restrict each to his own rightful por- 
tion. Its office in fact is restrictive, not dispensatory. The use of 
it is, not to give the first notion of property to those who were des- 
titute of it, but to limit and restrain the notion with those among 
whom it is apt to exist in a state of overflow. The use of law, in 
short, the great expounder and enforcer of property, is not to in- 
struct the men, who but for her lessons would appropriate none: 
but it is to restrain the men who, but for her checks and prohibitions, 
would monopolize all. 

28. Such then seems to have been the purpose of nature in so 
framing our mental constitution, that we not only appropriate from 
the first; but feel, each, such a power in those circumstances, which 
serve to limit the appropriation of every one man and to distinguish 
them from those of Others — that all, as if with common and prac- 
tical consent, sit side by side together, without conflict ami without 
interference, on their own respective portions, however unequal, oi' 
the territory in which they arc placed. On the uses, the indispen- 



THE WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 135 

sable uses of such an arrangement, we need not expatiate.* The 
hundred-fold superiority, in the amount of produce for the subsist- 
ence of human beings, which an appropriated country has over an 
equal extent of a like fertile but unappropriated, and, therefore, un- 
reclaimed wilderness, is too obvious to be explained. It may be 
stated however ; and when an economy so beneficial, without 
which even a few stragglers of our race could not be supported 
in comfort ; and a large human family, though many times inferior 
to that which now peoples our globe, could not be supported at all — 
when the effect of this economy, in multiplying to a degree incon- 
ceivable the aliment of human bodies, is viewed in connexion with 
those prior tendencies of the human mind which gave it birth, we 
cannot but regard the whole as an instance, and one of the strong- 
est which it is possible to allege, of the adaptation of external nature 
to that mental constitution, wherewith the Author of nature hath 
endowed us. 

29. In connexion with this part of our subject, there is one espe- 
cial adaptation, the statement of which we more willingly bring 
forward, that, besides being highly important in itself, it forms an 
instance of adaptation in the pure and limited sense of the termf 
— even the influence of a circumstance strictly material on the state 
of the moral world, in all the civilized, and indeed in all the appro- 
priated countries on the face of the earth. We advert to the actual 
fertility of the land, and to the circumstances purely physical by 
which the degree or measure of that fertility is determined. It has 
been well stated by some of the expounders of geological science, 
that, while the vegetable mould on the earth's surface is subject to 
perpetual waste, from the action both of the winds and of the wa- 
ters, either blowing it away in dust, or washing it down in rivers 
to the ocean — the loss thus sustained, is nevertheless perpetually re- 

• " The effect (of the abolition of property) would be as instant as inevitable. 
The cultivation of the fields would be abandoned. The population would be 
broken up into straggling 1 bands — each prowling in quest of a share in the remain- 
ing subsistence for themselves; and in the mutual contests of rapacity, they would 
anticipate, by deaths of violence, those still crueller deaths that would ensue, in 
the fearful destitution which awaited them. Yet many would be left whom the 
sword had spared, but whom famine would not spare — that overwhelming calamity 
under which a whole nation might ultimately disappear. But a few miserable 
survivors would dispute the spontaneous fruits of the earth with the beasts of the 
field, who now multiplied and overran that land which had been desolated of its 
people. And so by a series, every step of which was marked with increasing 
wretchedness, the transition would at length be made to a thinly scattered tribe of 
hunters, on what before had been a peopled territory of industrious and cultivated 
men. Thus, on the abolition of a single law, the fairest and most civilized region 
of the globe, which at present sustains its millions of families, out of a fertility 
that now waves over its cultivated, because its appropriated acres, would, on 
the simple tie of appropriation being broken, lapse in a very few years into a 
frightful solitude, or, if not bereft of humanity altogether, would at last become as 
desolate and dreary as a North American wilderness." — Political Economy in con- 
nexion with the Moral State and Moral Prospects of Society. 

f See the first paragraphs of the introductory chapter. 



136 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 

paired by the operation of the same material agents on the uplands 
of the territory — whence the dust and the debris, produced by a 
disintegration that is constantly going on even in the hardest rocks, 
is either strewed by the atmosphere, or carried down in an enriching 
sediment by mountain streams to the lands which are beneath them. 
It has been rightly argued, as the evidence and example of a bene- 
volent design, that the opposite causes of consumption and of supply 
are so adjusted to each other, as to have ensured the perpetuity of 
our soils.* But even though these counteracting forces had been 
somewhat differently balanced ; though the wasting operation had 
remained as active and as powerful, while a more difficult pulveri- 
zation of the rocks had made the restorative operation slower and 
feebler than before — still we might have had our permanent or sta- 
tionary soils, but only all of less fertility than that in which we now 
find them. A somewhat different constitution of the rocks ; or a 
somewhat altered proportion in the forces of that machinery which 
is brought to bear upon them — in the cohesion that withstands, or in 
the impulse and the atmospherical depositions and the grinding 
frosts and the undermining torrents that separate and carry off the 
materials — a slight change in one or all of these causes, might have 
let down each of the various soils on the face of the world to a 
lower point in the scale of productiveness than at present belongs 
to them. And when we think of the mighty bearing which the de- 
termination of this single element has on the state and interests of 

* "It is highly interesting- to trace up, in this manner, the action of causes with 
which we are familiar, to the production of effects, which at first seem to require 
the introduction of unknown and extraordinary powers; and it is no less interest- 
ing to observe, how skilfully nature has balanced the action of all the minute 
causes of waste and rendered them conducive to the general good. Of this we 
have a most remarkable instance, in the provision made for preserving the soil, or 
the coat of vegetable mould, spread out over the surface of the earth. This coat, 
as it consists of loose materials, is easily washed away by the rains, and is continu- 
ally carried down by the rivers into the sea. This effect is visible to every one; 
the earth is removed not only in the form of sand and gravel, but its finer particles 
suspended in the waters, tinge those of some rivers continually, and those of all 
occasionally, that is, when they are flooded or swollen with rains. The quantity 
of earth thus carried down, varies according to circumstances; it has been com- 
puted in some instances, that the water of a river in a flood, contains earthy mat- 
ter suspended in it, amounting to more than the two hundred and fiftieth part of 
its own bulk. The soil therefore, is continually diminished, its parts being delivered 
from higher to lower levels, and finally delivered into the sea. Rut it is a fact, that 
the soil, notwithstanding, remains the same in quantity, or at least nearly the same, 
and must have done so, ever since the earth was the receptable of animal or vege- 
table life. The soil therefore is augmented from other causes, just as mueh, at an 
average, as it is diminished by those now mentioned; and this augmentation evi- 
dently can proceed from nothing hut the Constant and slow disintegration of the 

rocks, in the permanence, therefore, of a coat of vegetable mould on the surface 
of the earth, we have a demonstrative proof of the continual destruction of the 

rocks; and cannot hut admire the skill, with which the powers of the many che- 
mical and mechanical agents employed in 'his complicated work, arc so adjusted, 
as to make tin- supply and the waste of the soil exactly equal to one another.'" — 
Playfair'i Illustrations of the Uuttoman Theory. Section iii. Art. 13. . 



THE WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 137 

human society, wc cannot resist the conclusion that, depending as it 
does on so many influences, there has, in the assortment of these, 
been a studied adaptation of the material and the mental worlds to 
each other. For only let us consider the effect, had the fertility 
been brought so low, as that on the best of soils, the produce ex- 
tracted by the most strenuous efforts of human toil, could no more 
than repay the cultivation bestowed on them — or that the food, thus 
laboriously raised, would barely suffice for the maintenance of the 
labourers. It is obvious that a fertility beneath this point would 
have kept the whole earth in a state of perpetual barrenness and 
desolation — when, though performing as now its astronomical cir- 
cuit in the heavens, it would have been a planet bereft of life, or at 
least unfit for the abode and sustenance of the rational generations 
by whom it is at present occupied. 'But even with a fertility at this 
point, although a race of men might have been upholden, the tenure 
by which each man held his existence behoved to have been a life 
of unremitting drudgery; and we should have beheld the whole 
species engaged in a constant struggle of penury and pain for the 
supply of their animal necessities. And it is because of a fertility 
above this point, the actual fertility of vast portions of land in most 
countries of the earth — that many and extensive are the soils which 
yield a large surplus produce, over and above the maintenance of 
all, who are engaged, whether directly or indirectly, in the work of 
their cultivation. The strength of the possessory feelings on the one 
hand, giving rise to possessory rights recognised and acquiesced in 
by all men ; these rights investing a single individual with the 
ownership of lands, that yield on the other hand a surplus produce, 
over which he has the uncontrolled disposal — make up together, 
such a constitution of the moral, combined with such a constitution 
of the material system, as demonstrates that the gradation of wealth 
in human society has its deep and its lasting foundation in the nature 
of things. And that the construction of such an economy, with all 
the conservative influences by which it is upholder* attests both 
the wisdom and the benevolence of Him who is the Author of nature, 
may best be evinced by the momentous purposes, to which this sur- 
plus produce of land, (the great originator of all that can be termed 
affluence in the world) is subservient — " Had no ground yielded 
more in return for the labour expended on it, than the food of the 
cultivators and their secondaries, the existence of one and all of the 
human race would have been spent in mere labour. Every man 
would have been doomed to a life of unremitting toil for his bodily 
subsistence ; and none could have been supported in a state of leisure, 
either for idleness, or for other employments than those of husban- 
dry, and such coarser manufactories as serve to provide society 
with the second necessaries of existence. The species would have 

* See Art. 7 of this Chapter. 
12* 



138 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE, &C. 

risen but a few degrees, whether physical or moral, above the con- 
dition of mere savages. It is just because of a fertility in the earth, by 
which it yields a surplus over and above the food of the direct and 
secondary labourers, that we can command the services of a dispo- 
sable population, who, in return for their maintenance, minister to 
the proprietors of this surplus, all the higher comforts and elegancies 
of life. It is precisely to this surplus we owe it, that society is 
provided with more than a coarse and a bare supply for the neces- 
sities of animal nature. It is the original fund out of which are 
paid the expenses of art, and science, and civilization, and luxury, 
and law, and defence, and all, in short, that contributes either to 
strengthen or to adorn the commonwealth. Without this surplus, 
we should have had but an agrarian population — consisting of hus- 
bandmen, and those few homely and rustic artificers, who, scattered 
in hamlets over the land, would have given their secondary services 
to the whole population. It marks an interesting connexion between 
the capabilities of the soil, and the condition of social life, that to 
this surplus we stand indispensably indebted for our crowded cities, 
our thousand manufactories for the supply of comforts and refine- 
ments to society, our wide and diversified commerce, our armies of 
protection, our schools and colleges of education, our halls of le- 
gislation and justice, even our altars of piety and temple services. 
It has been remarked by geologists, as the evidence of a presiding 
design in nature, that the waste of the soil is so nicely balanced by 
the supply from the disintegration of the upland rocks, which are 
worn and pulverized at such a rate, as to keep up a good vegetable 
mould on the surface of the earth. But each science teems with 
the like evidences of a devising and intelligent God ; and when we 
view aright the many beneficent functions, to which, through the in- 
strumentality of its surplus produce, the actual degree of the earth's 
fertility is subservient, we cannot imagine a more wondrous and 
beautiful adaptation between the state of external nature and the 
mechanism of human society."* 

* Political Economy in connexion with the Moral State and Moral Prospects of 
Society. C. ii, Art. 10. In the appendix to this work on the subject of rent, 
there are further observations tending- to prove that " there is an optimism in the 
actual constitution of the land, as in everything- else that has proceeded from the 
hand of the Almighty. 



139 



CHAPTER VII. 

On those special Affections which conduce to the economic well-being 

of Society. 

1. We now proceed to consider the economic, in contradistinction 
to the civil and political well-being of society, to the extent that this 
is dependent on certain mental tendencies — whether these can be 
demonstrated by analysis to be only secondary results or in them- 
selves to be simple elements of the human constitution. We may 
be said indeed, to have already bordered on this part of our argu- 
ment — when considering the origin and the rights of property ; or 
the manner in which certain possessory affections, that appear even 
in the infancy of the mind and anticipate by many years the exer- 
cise of human wisdom, lead to a better distribution, both of the 
earth and of all the valuables which are upon it, than human wis- 
dom could possibly have devised, or at least than human power 
without the help of these special affections could have carried into 
effect. For there might be a useful economy sanctioned by law, 
yet which law could not have securely established, unless it had had 
a foundation in nature. For in this respect, there is a limit to the 
force even of the mightiest despotism — insomuch that the most ab- 
solute monarch on the face of the earth must so far conform him- 
self, to the indelible human nature of the subjects over whom he 
proudly bears the sway; else, in the reaction of their outraged prin- 
ciples and feelings, they would hurl him from his throne. And thus 
it is well, that, so very generally in the different countries of the 
world, law, both in her respect for the possessory and acquired 
rights of property and in her enforcement of them, has, instead of 
chalking out an arbitrary path for herself, only followed where na- 
ture beforehand had pointed the way. It is far better, that, rather 
than devise a jurisprudence made up of her own capricious inven- 
tions — she should, to so great an extent, have but ratified a prior 
jurisprudence, founded on the original or at least the universal affec- 
tions of humanity. We know few things more instructive than a 
study of the mischievous effects, which attend a deviation from this 
course — of which we at present shall state two remarkable instances. 
The evils which ensue when law traverses any of those principles, 
that lie deeply seated in the very make and constitution of the mind, 
bring out into more striking exhibition the superior wisdom of that 
nature from which she has departed — even as the original perfection 
of a mechanism is never more fully demonstrated, than by the con- 
trast of those repeated failures, which shows of every change or at- 
tempted improvement, that it but deranges or deteriorates the ope- 
rations of the instrument in question. And thus too it is, that a les- 



140 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 

son of sound theology may be gathered, from the errors with their 
accompanying evils of unsound legislation — on those occasions 
when the wisdom of man comes into conflict and collision with the 
wisdom of God. 

2. Of the two instances that we are now to produce, in which 
law hath made a deviation from nature, and done in consequence a 
tremendous quantity of evil, the first is the Tithe System of Eng- 
land. We do not think that the provision of her established clergy 
is in any way too liberal — but very much the reverse. Still we 
hold it signally unfortunate that it should have been levied so, as to 
do most unnecessary violence to the possessory feeling, both of the 
owners and occupiers of land all over the country. Had the tithe, 
like some other of the public burthens, been commuted into a pecu- 
niary and yearly tax on the proprietors — the possessory feeling 
would not have been so painfully or so directly thwarted by it. But 
it is the constant intromission of the tithe agents or proctors with 
the fields, and the ipsa corpora that are within the limits of the pro- 
perty — which exposes this strong natural affection to an annoyance 
that is felt to be intolerable.* But far the best method of adjusting 
the state of the law to those principles of ownership which are anterior 
to law, and which all its authority is unable to quench — would be 
a commutation into land. Let the church property in each parish 
be dissevered in this way from its main territory ; and then, both for 
the lay and the ecclesiastical domain, there would be an accordance of 
the legal with the possessory right. It is because these are in such 
painful dissonance, under the existing state of things, that there is so 
much exasperation in England, connected with the support and 
maintenance of her clergy. No doubt law can enforce her own 
arrangements, however arbitrary and unnatural they might be; but 
it is a striking exhibition, we have always thought, of the triumph 
of the possessory over the legal, that, in the contest between the 
two parties, the clergy have constantly been losing ground. And, 
in resistance to all the opprobrium which has been thrown upon 
them, do we affirm, that, with a disinterestedness which is almost 
heroic, they have, in deed and in practice, forborne to the average 

• The following" example of the thousands which might be alleged will show 
how apt the possessory feeling is to revolt against the legal right, and at length to 
overbear it. 

The fee-simple of the Church property of the Dean and Chapter of Durham is 
in the Dean and Chapter of Durham. 

The custom for ages has been to let houses on leases of forty years, and lands on 
leases of twenty-one years, at small resei*ved rents, these leases being renewable at 
the end of seven years, at the pleasure of the Dean and Chapter on tine payment of 
arbitrary fines — which fines however as actually levied are exceedingly moderate, 
one year and a quarter being asked for houses, and one and a half for lands. 

Several of the families of the occupiers >>t lands and houses so leased have been 
in possession for generations — and long possession has given to some of these occu- 
piers such a Btrength of possessory feeling, that they have the sense of being ag- 
grieved, if they do not get the renewals on their own terms. 



THE ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 141 

extent of at least one half, the assertion of their claims. The truth 
is, that the felt odium which attaches to the system ought never to 
have fallen upon them. It is an inseparable consequence of the 
arrangement itself, by which law hath traversed nature — so as to be 
constantly rubbing, as it were, against that possessory feeling, which 
may be regarded as one of the strongest of her instincts. There 
are* few reformations that would do more to sweeten the breath of 
English society, than the removal of this sore annoyance — the 
brooding fountain of so many heartburnings and so many fester- 
ments, by which the elements of an unappeasable warfare are ever 
at work between the landed interest of the country, and far the most 
important class of its public functionaries; and, what is the saddest 
perversity of all, those, whose office it is by the mild persuasions of 
Christianity, to train the population of our land in the lessons of love 
and peace and righteousness — they are forced by the necessities of 
a system which many of them deplore, into the attitude of extor- 
tioners ; and placed in that very current, along which a people's 
hatred and a people's obloquy are wholly unavoidable.* Even 
under the theocracy of the Jews, the system of tithes was with diffi- 
culty upholden; and many are the remonstrances which the gifted 
seers of Israel held with its people, for having brought of the lame 
and the diseased as offerings. Such, in fact, is the violence done by 
this system to the possessory feelings, that a conscientious submis- 
sion to its exactions, may be regarded as a most decisive test of 
religious obedience — such an obedience, indeed, as was but ill main- 
tained, even in the days of the Hebrew polity, although it had the 
force of temporal sanctions, with the miracles and manifestations of 
a presiding deity to sustain it. Unless by the express appointment 
of heaven, this yoke of Judaism, unaccompanied as it now is by the 
peculiar and preternatural enforcements of that dispensation, ought 
never to have been perpetuated in the days of Christianity. There 
are distinct, and, we hold, valid reasons, for the national main- 
tenance of an order of men in the capacity of religious instructors 
to the people. But maintenance in a way so obnoxious to nature, 
is alike adverse to a sound civil and sound Christian policy. Both 
the cause of religion and the cause of loyalty have suffered by it. 
The alienation of the church's wealth, were a deadly blow to the 
best and highest interests of England : but there are few things 
would conduce more to the strength and peace of our nation, than 
a fair and right commutation of it. 

* There is often the utmost injustice irt that professional odium which is laid 
upon a whole order, and none have suffered more under it, than the clergy of Eng- 
land have, from the sweeping and indiscriminate charges, which have been pre- 
ferred against them, by the demagogues of our land. We believe that nothing has 
given more of edge and currency to these invectives, than the very unfortunate way 
in which their maintenance has been provided for ; and many are the amiable and 
accomplished individuals among themselves to whom it is a matter of downright 
agony. 



142 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 

3. Our next very flagrant example of a mischievous collision be- 
tween the legal and the possessory, is the English system of poor 
laws. By law each man who can make good his plea of necessity, 
has a claim for the relief of it, from the owners or occupiers of the 
soil, or from the owners and occupiers of houses ; and never, till the 
end of time, will all the authority, and all the enactments of the 
statute-book, be able to divest them of the feeling, that their property 
is invaded. Law never can so counterwork the strong possessory 
feeling, as to reconcile the proprietors of England to this legalised 
enormity, or rid them of the sensation of a perpetual violence. It is 
this mal-adjustment between the voice that nature gives forth on the 
right of property, and the voice that arbitrary law gives forth upon 
it — it is this, which begets something more than a painful insecurity 
as to the stability of their possessions. There is besides, a positive, 
and what we should call, a most natural irritation. That strong 
possessory feeling, by which each is wedded to his own domain in 
the relation of its rightful proprietor ; and which they can no more 
help, because as much a part of their original constitution, than the 
parental feeling by which each is wedded to his own family in the 
relation of its natural protector — this strong possessory feeling, we 
say, is, under their existing economy, subject all over England to a 
perpetual and most painful annoyance. And accordingly we do 
find the utmost acerbity of tone and temper, among the upper classes 
of England, in reference to their poor. We are not sure, indeed, 
if there be any great difference, with many of them, between the 
feeling which they have towards the poor, and the feeling which 
they have towards poachers. It is true that the law is on the side 
of the one, and against the other. Yet it goes most strikingly to 
prove, how impossible it is for law to carry the acquiescence of the 
heart, when it contravenes the primary and urgent affections of 
nature — that paupers are in any degree assimilated to poachers in 
the public imagination; and that the inroads of both upon pro- 
perty should be resented, as if both alike were a sort of trespass or 
invasion. 

4. And it is further interesting to observe the effect of this unna- 
tural state of things on the paupers themselves. Even in their de- 
portment, we might read an unconscious homage to the possessory 
right. And whereas, it has been argued in behalf of a poor-rate, 
that, so far from degrading, it sustains an independence of spirit 
among the peasantry, by turning that which would have been a 
matter of beggary into a matter of rightful and manly assertion — 
there is none who has attended the meeting of a parish vestry, that 
will not readily admit, the total dissimilarity which obtains between 
the assertion to a right of maintenance, and the assertion o( any other 
right whatever, whether in the field of war or of patriotism. There 
maybe much of the insolence of beggary ; but along with this there 
is a most discernible mixture of its mean, and crouching, and igno- 



THE ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 143 

ble sordidness. There is no common quality whatever between the 
clamorous onset of this worthless and dissipated crew, and the ge- 
nerous battle-cry pro aris et focis, in which the humblest of our 
population will join — when paternal acres, or the rights of any ac- 
tually holden property are invaded. In the mind of the pauper, with 
all his challenging and all his boisterousness, there is still the latent 
impression, that, after all, there is a certain want of firmness about 
his plea. He is not altogether sure of the ground upon which he is 
standing; and, in spite of all that law has done to pervert his 
imagination, the possessory right of those against whom he prefers 
his demand, stares him in the face, and disturbs him not a little out 
of that confidence, wherewith a man represents and urges the de- 
mands of unquestionable justice. In spite of himself, he cannot 
avoid having somewhat the look and the consciousness of a poacher. 
And so the effect of England's most unfortunate blunder, has been, 
to alienate on the one hand her rich from her poor ; and on the 
other to debase into the very spirit and sordidness of beggary, a 
large and ever-increasing mass of her population. There is but one 
way, we can never cease to affirm, by which this grievous distem- 
per of the body politic can be removed. And that is, by causing 
the law of property to harmonise with the strong and universal 
instincts of nature in regard to it; by making the possessory right 
to be at least as inviolable as the common sense of mankind would 
make it ; and as to the poor, by utterly recalling the blunder that 
England made, when she turned into a matter of legal constraint, 
that which should ever be a matter of love and liberty, and when 
she aggravated ten-fold the dependence and misery of the lower 
classes, by divorcing the cause of humanity from the willing gene- 
rosities, the spontaneous and unforced sympathies of our nature. 

5. But this brings into view another of our special affections— 
our compassion for the distress, including, as one of its most promi- 
nent and frequently recurring objects, our compassion for the desti- 
tution of others. We have already seen, how nature hath provided, 
by one of its implanted affections, for the establishment of property; 
and for the respect in which, amid all its inequalities, it is held by 
society. But helpless destitution forms one extreme of this inequality, 
which a mere system of property appears to leave out; and which, 
if not otherwise provided for by the wisdom of nature in the con- 
stitution of the human mind, would perhaps justify an attempt by the 
wisdom of man to provide for it in the constitution of human law. 
We do not instance, at present, certain other securities which have 
been instituted by the hand of nature, and which, if not traversed 
and enfeebled by a legislation wholly uncalled for, would of them- 
selves, prevent the extensive prevalence of want in society. These 
are the urgent law of self-preservation, prompting to industry on the 
one hand and to economy on the other; and the strong law of rela- 
tive affection — which laws, if not tampered with and undermined in 



144 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 

their force and efficacy by the law of pauperism, would not have 
relieved, but greatly better, would have prevented the vast majority 
of those cases which fill the workhouses, and swarm around the 
vestries of England. Still these, however, would not have pre- 
vented all poverty. A few instances, like those which are so quietly 
and manageably, but withal effectually met in the country parishes 
of Scotland, would still occur in every little community, however 
virtuous or well regulated. And in regard to these, there is ano- 
ther law of the mental constitution, by which nature hath made 
special provision for them — even the beautiful law of compassion, in 
virtue of which the sight of another in agony, (and most of all per- 
haps in the agony of pining hunger,) would, if unrelieved, create a 
sensation of discomfort in the heart of the observer, scarcely in- 
ferior to what he should have felt, had the suffering and the agony 
been his own. 

6. But in England, the state, regardless of all the indices which 
nature had planted in the human constitution, hath taken the regula- 
tion of this matter into its own hands. By its law of pauperism, it 
hath, in the first instance, ordained for the poor a legal property in 
the soil ; and thereby, running counter to the strong possessory 
affection, it hath done violence to the natural and original distribu- 
tion of the land, and loosened the secure hold of each separate 
owner, on the portion which belongs to him. And in the second 
instance, distrustful of the efficacy of compassion, it, by way of help- 
ing forward its languid energies, hath applied the strong hand of 
power to it. Now it so happens, that nothing more effectually stifles 
compassion, or puts it to flight, than to be thus meddled with. The 
spirit of kindness utterly refuses the constraints of authority ; and 
law in England, by taking the business of charity upon itself, instead 
of supplementing, hath well nigh destroyed the anterior provision 
made for it by nature — thus leaving it to be chiefly provided for, by 
methods and by a machinery of its own. The proper function of 
law is to enforce the rights of justice, or to defend against the viola- 
tion of them ; and never does it make a more flagrant or a more 
hurtful invasion, beyond the confines of its own legitimate territory 
— than, when confounding humanity with justice, it would apply the 
same enforcements to the one virtue as to the other. Jt should 
have taken a lesson from the strong and evident distinction which 
nature hath made between these two virtues, in her construction o{ 
our moral system ; and should have observed a corresponding dis- 
tinction in its own treatment of them — resenting the violation of the 
one; but leaving the other to the free interchanges o( good-will on 
the side of the dispenser, and of gratitude on the side o( the reci- 
pient. When law, distrustful of the compassion that is in all hearts. 
enacted a system of compulsory relief, lest, in our neglect o\ others, 
the indigent should starve; it did incomparably worse, than if, dis- 
trustful of the appetite of hunger, it had enacted for the use o( food 



THE ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 145 

a certain regimen of times and quantities, lest, neglectful of our- 
selves, our bodies might have perished. Nature has made a better 
provision than this for both these interests ; but law has done more 
mischief by interference with the one, than it could ever have done 
by interference with the other. It could not have quelled the appe- 
tite of hunger, which still, in spite of all the law's officiousness, 
would have remained the great practical impellent to the use of food, 
for the well-being of our physical economy. But it has done much 
to quell and to overbear the affection of compassion — that never- 
failing impellent, in a free and natural state of things, to deeds of 
charity, for the well-being of the social economy. The evils which 
have ensued are of too potent and pressing a character to require de- 
scription. They have placed England in a grievous dilemma, from 
which she can only be extricated, by the new modelling of this part 
of her statute-book, and a nearer conformity of its provisions to the 
principles of natural jurisprudence. Meanwhile they afford an em- 
phatic demonstration for the superior wisdom of nature, which is 
never so decisively or so triumphantly attested, as by the mischief 
that is done, when her processes are contravened or her principles 
are violated.* 

7. We are aware of a certain ethical system, that would obliterate 
the distinction between justice and humanity, by running or re- 
solving the one into the other — affirming of the former more par- 
ticularly, that all its virtue is founded on its utility; and that there- 
fore justice, to which may be added truth, is no further a virtue, 
than as it is instrumental of good to men — thus making both truth 
and justice, mere species or modifications of benevolence. Now, as 
we have already stated, it is not with the theory of morals, but with 
the moral constitution of man that we have properly to do ; and, 
most certain it is, that man does feel the moral Tightness both of 
justice and truth, irrespective altogether of their consequences — or, 
at least, apart from any such view to these consequences at the 
time, as the mind is at all conscious of. There is an appetite of our 
sentient nature which terminates in food, and that is irrespective of 
all its subsequent utilities to the animal economy ; and there is an 
appetite for doing what is right which terminates in virtue, and 
which bears as little respect to its utilities — whether for the good of 
self or for the good of society. The man whom some temptation to 
what is dishonourable would put" into a state of recoil and restless- 
ness, has no other aim, in the resistance he makes to it, than simply 

* Without contending 1 for the language of our older moralists, the distinction 
which they mean to express, by virtues of perfect and imperfect obligation, has a 
foundation in reality and in the nature of things — as between justice where the 
obligation on one side implies a counterpart right upon the other, and benevolence 
to which, whatever the obligation may be on the part of the dispenser, there is no 
corresponding right on the part of the recipient. The proper office of law is to 
enforce the former virtues. When it attempts to enforce the latter, it makes mis- 
chievous extension of itself beyond its own legitimate boundaries. 

13 



146 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 

to make full acquittal of his integrity. This is his landing-place; 
and he looks no further. There may be a thousand dependent bless- 
ings to humanity, from the observation of moral rectitude. But the 
pure and simple appetency for rectitude, rests upon this as its ob- 
ject, without any onward reference to the consequences which shall 
flow from it. This consideration alone is sufficient to dispose of the 
system of utility — as being metaphysically incorrect in point of con- 
ception, and incorrect in the expression of it. If a man can do vir- 
tuously, when not aiming at the useful, and not so much as thinking 
of it — then to design and execute what is useful, may be and is a 
virtue ; but it is not all virtue.* 

8. There is one way in which a theorist may take refuge from 
this conclusion. It is quite palpable, that a man often feels himself 
to be doing virtuously — when, to all sense, he is not thinking of the 
utilities which follow in its train. But then it may be affirmed, that 
he really is so thinking — although he is not sensible of it. There 
can be little doubt of such being the actual economy of the world, 
such the existing arrangement of its laws and its sequences — that 
virtue and happiness are very closely associated ; and that, no less 
in those instances, where the resulting happiness is not at all thought 
of, than in those where happiness is the direct and declared object 
of the virtue. Who can doubt that truth and justice bear as mani- 
fold and as important a subserviency to the good of the species as 
beneficence does 1 — and yet it is only with the latter, that this good 
is the object of our immediate contemplation. But then it is af- 
firmed, that, when two terms are constantly associated in nature, 
there must be as constant an association of them in the mind of the 
observer of nature — an association at length so habitual, and there- 
fore so rapid, that we become utterly unconscious of it. Of this we 
have examples, in the most frequent and familiar operations of hu- 
man life. In the act of reading, every alphabetical letter must have 
been present to the mind — yet how many thousands of them, in the 
course of a single hour, must have passed in fleeting succession, 
without so much as one moment's sense of their presence, which the 
mind has any recollection of. And it is the same in listening to an 
acquaintance, when we receive the whole meaning and elfect of his 
discourse, without the distinct consciousness of very many of those 
individual words which still were indispensable to the meaning. 
Nay, there are other and yet more inscrutable mysteries in the liu- 

• If our moral judgment tell that some particular thing is right, without our ad- 
verting- to its utility — then though :ill that we hold to be morally right should he 

proved by observation to yield the maximum of utility, utility is not on that ac- 
count the mind's criterion for the rightness of this particular thing. God hath 
given us the sense of what is right ; and He hath besides so ordained tin- system of 
things, that what is right is generally that which is most useful — yet, in many in- 
stances, it is not the perceived usefulness, which makes us recognise it to he right. 

We agree too with Bishop Butler in not venturing to assume that God's sole end 
in creation was the production of the greatest happiness. 



THE ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 14? 

man constitution; and which relate, not to the thoughts that we 
conceive without being sensible of them, but even to the volitions 
that we put forth, and to very many of which we are alike insensi- 
ble. We have only to reflect on the number and complexity of 
those muscles which are put into action, in the mere processes of 
writing or walking, or even of so balancing ourselves as to maintain 
a posture of stability. It is understood to be at the bidding of the 
will, that each of our muscles performs its distinct office ; and yet, 
out of the countless volitions, which had their part and their play, in 
these complicated, and yet withal most familiar and easily practica- 
ble operations — how many there are which wholly escape the eye 
of consciousness. And thus too, recourse may be had to the 
imagination of certain associating processes, too hidden for being 
the objects of sense at the time, and too fugitive for being the objects 
of remembrance afterwards. And on the strength of these it may 
be asked — how are we to know, that the utility of truth and justice 
is not present to the mind of man, when he discharges the obliga- 
tion of these virtues ; and how are we to know, that it is not the 
undiscoverable thought of this utility, which forms the impellent 
principle of that undiscoverable volition, by which man is urged to 
the performance of them ? 

9. Now we are precluded from replying to this question in any 
other way, than that the theory which requires such an argument for 
its support, may be said to fetch all its materials from the region of 
conjecture. It ventures on the affirmation of what is going on in a 
terra incognita; and w T e have not the means within our reach, for 
meeting it in the terms of a positive contradiction. But we can at 
least say, that a mere argumentum ab ignorantia is not a sufficient 
basis on which to ground a philosophic theory ; and that thus to fetch 
an hypothesis from among the inscrutabilities of the mind, to speak of 
the processes going on there so quick and so evanescent that the eye 
of consciousness cannot discover them — is to rear a superstructure 
not upon the facts which lie within the limit of separation between 
the known and the unknown, but upon the fancies which lie without 
this limit. A great deal more is necessary for the establishment of 
an assertion, than that an adversary cannot disprove it. A thousand 
possibilities may be affirmed which are susceptible neither of proof 
nor of disproof; and surely it were the worst of logic to accept as 
proof, the mere circumstance that they are beyond the reach of dis- 
proof. They, in fact, lie alike beyond the reach of both ; in which 
case they should be ranked among the figments of mere imagina- 
tion, and not among the findings of experience. How are we to 
know but that, in the bosom of our great planetary amplitude, there 
do not float, and in elliptic orbits round the sun, pieces of matter 
vastly too diminutive for our telescopes ; and that thus the large in- 
termediate spaces between the known bodies of the system, instead 
of so many desolate blanks, are in fact peopled with little worlds — 



148 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 

all of them teeming, like our own, with busy and cheerful animation. 
Now, in the powerlessness of our existing telescopes, we do not 
know but it may be so. But we will not believe that it is so, till a 
telescope of power enough be invented, for disclosing this scene of 
wonders to our observation. And it is the same of the moral theory 
that now engages us. It rests, not upon what it finds among the 
arcana of the human spirit, but upon what it fancies to be there ; 
and they are fancies too which we cannot deny, but which we will 
not admit — till, by some improved power of internal observation, 
they are turned into findings. We are quite sensible of the virtuous- 
ness of truth ; but w r e have not yet been made sensible, that we 
always recognise this virtuousness, because of a glance we have 
had of the utility of truth — though only perhaps for a moment of 
time, too minute and microscopical for being noticed by the naked 
eye of consciousness. We can go no further upon this question than 
the light of evidence will carry us. And, while we both feel in our 
own bosoms and observe in the testimony of those around us, the 
moral deference w T hich is due to truth and justice — we have not yet 
detected this to be the same with that deference, which we render 
to the virtue of benevolence. Or, in other words, we do venerate 
and regard these as virtues — while, for aught we know, the utility of 
them is not in all our thoughts. We agree with Dugald Stewart in 
thinking, that, " considerations of utility do not seem to us the only 
ground of the approbation we bestow on this disposition." He fur- 
ther observes, that, " abstracting from all regard to consequences, 
there is something pleasing and amiable in sincerity, openness, and 
truth; something disagreeable and disgusting in duplicity, equivoca- 
tion, and falsehood. Dr. Hutcheson himself, the great patron of 
that theory which resolves all moral qualities into benevolence, con- 
fesses this — for he speaks of a sense which leads us to approve of 
veracity, distinct from the sense which approves of qualities useful 
to mankind."* 

10. However difficult it may be, to resolve the objective question 
which respects the constitution of virtue in itself— in the subjective 
question, which respects the constitution of the mind, wc cannot but 
acknowledge the broad and palpable distinction, which the Author 
of our moral frame hath made, between justice and truth on the one 
hand, and benevolence on the other. Ami it had been well, if law- 
givers had discriminated, as nature has done, between justice and 
humanity — although the mischief <>t' their unfortunate deviation 
serves, all the more strikingly, to prove the adaptation o\' our moral 
constitution to the exigencies oi' human society. The law o\ pau- 
perism hath assimilated beneficence t«> justice, by enacting the for- 
mer, in the very way thai it docs the latter : and enforcing v\ hat it has 
thus enacted by penalties. Beneficence loses altogether its proper 

* Stewart's "Outlines of Moral Philosophy," Art. "\ cvaoity. 



THE ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 149 

and original character — when, instead of moving on the impulse of 
a spontaneous kindness that operates from within, it moves on the 
impulse of a legal obligation from without. Should law specify the 
yearly sum that must pass from my hands to the destitute around 
me — then, it is not beneficence which has to do with the matter. 
What I have to surrender, law hath already ordained to be the pro- 
perty of another; and I, in giving it up, am doing an act of justice 
and not an act of liberality. To exercise the virtue of beneficence, 
I must go beyond the sum that is specified by law ; and thus law in 
her attempts to seize upon beneficence, and to bring her under rule, 
hath only forced her to retire within a narrower territory, on which 
•alone it is that she can put forth the free and native characteristics 
which belong to her. Law, in fact, cannot, with any possible in- 
genuity, obtain an imperative hold on beneficence at all — for her 
very touch transforms this virtue into another. Should law go forth 
on the enterprise of arresting beneficence upon her own domain, 
and there laying upon her its authoritative dictates — it would find 
that beneficence had eluded its pursuit; and that all which it could 
possibly do, was to wrest from her that part of the domain of which 
it had taken occupation, and bring it under the authority of justice. 
When it thought to enact for beneficence, it only, in truth, enacted 
a new division of property ; and in so doing, it contravenes the 
possessory, one of nature's special affections — while, by its attempts 
to force what should have been left to the free exercise of compas- 
sion, has done much to supersede or to extinguish another of these 
affections. It hath so pushed forward the line of demarcation — as 
to widen the space which justice might call her own, and to con- 
tract the space which beneficence might call her own. But never 
will law be able to make a captive of beneficence, or to lay personal 
arrest upon her. It might lessen and limit her means, or even 
starve her into utter annihilation. But never can it make a living 
captive of her. It is altogether a vain and hopeless undertaking to 
legislate on the duties of beneficence ; for the very nature of this vir- 
tue, is to do good freely and willingly with its own. But on the 
moment that law interposes to any given extent with one's property, 
to that extent it ceases to be his own ; and any good that is done by 
it is not done freely. The force of law and the freeness of love 
cannot amalgamate the one with the other. Like water and oil 
they are immiscible. We cannot translate beneficence into the 
statute-book of law, without expunging it from the statute-book of 
the heart ; and, to whatever extent we make it the object of com- 
pulsion, to that extent we must destroy it. 

11. And in the proportion that beneficence is put to flight, is 
gratitude put to flight along with it. The proper object of this emo- 
tion is another's good-will. But I do not hold as from the good- 
will of another, that which law hath enabled me to plea as my own 
right — nay to demand, with a front of hardy and resolute assertion. 

13* 



150 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 

It is this which makes it the most delicate and dangerous of all 
ground — when law offers to prescribe rules for the exercise of 
beneficence, or to lay its compulsory hand on a virtue, the very 
freedom of which is indispensable to its existence. And it not only 
extinguishes the virtue ; but it puts an end to all those responses of 
glad and grateful emotion, which its presence and its smile and the 
generosity of its free-will offerings awaken in society. It is laying 
an arrest on all the music of living intercourse, thus to forbid those 
beautiful and delicious echoes, which are reflected, on every visit of 
unconstrained mercy, from those families that are gladdened by her 
footsteps. And what is worse, it is substituting in their place, the 
the hoarse and jarring discords of the challenge and the conflict and 
the angry litigation. We may thus see, that there is a province in 
human affairs, on which law should make no entrance — a certain 
department of human virtue wherein the moralities should be left to 
their own unfettered play, else they shall be frozen into utter apathy 
— a field sacred to liberty and good-will that should ever be kept 
beyond the reach of jurisprudence ; or on which, if she once obtain 
a footing, she will spoil it of all those unbought and unbidden graces 
that natively adorn it. So that while to law we would commit the 
defence of society from all the aggressions of violence, and confide 
the strict and the stern guardianship of the interests of justice — we 
should tremble for humanity lest it withered and expired under the 
grasp of so rough a protector ; and lest before a countenance grave 
as that of a judge, and grim as that of a messenger-at-arms, this 
frail but loveliest of the virtues should be turned, as if by the head of 
Medusa, into stone. 

12. But there are other moral ills in this unfortunate perversion, 
beside the extinction of good-will in the hearts of the affluent and of 
gratitude in the hearts of the poor — though it be no slight mischief 
to any community, that the tie of kindliness between these two 
orders should have been broken ; and that the business of charity, 
which when left spontaneous is so fertile in all the amenities of life, 
should be transformed into a fierce warfare of rights, from its very 
nature incapable of adjustment, and, whether they be the en- 
croached upon or the repelled, subjecting both parties to the sense 
of a perpetual violence. But over and above this, there are other 
distempers, wherewith it hath smitten the social economy of Eng- 
land, and of which experience will supply the English observer with 
many a vivid recollection. The reckless hut withal most natural 
improvidence of those whom the state has undertaken to provide fori 
seeing that law hath proclaimed in their favour a discharge from 
the, cures and the duties of self-preservation — the headlong dissipa- 
tion, in consequence — the dissolution of family tics, for the same 
public and proclaimed charity which absolves a man from attention 
to himself Will absolve him also from attention to his relatives — the 
decay and interruption of sympathy in all the little vicinities of town 



THE ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 151 

and country, for each man under this system of an assured and 
universal provision feels himself absolved too from attention to his 
neighbours — These distempers both social and economic have a 
common origin ; and the excess of them above what taketh place in 
a natural state of things may all be traced to the unfortunate aberra- 
tion, which, in this instance, the constitution of human law hath 
made from the constitution of human nature. 

13. In our attempts to trace the rise of the possessory affection 
and of a sense of property, we have not been able to discover any 
foundation in nature, for a sentiment that we often hear impetuously 
urged by the advocates of the system of pauperism — that every man 
has a right to the means of subsistence. Nature does not connect 
this right with existence ; but with continued occupation, and with 
another principle to which it also gives the sanction of its voice — 
that, each man is legitimate owner of the fruits of his own industry. 
These are the principles on which nature hath drawn her landmarks 
over every territory that is peopled and cultivated by human beings. 
And the actual distribution of property is the fruit, partly of man's 
own direct aim and acquisition, and partly of circumstances over 
which he had no control. The right of man to the means of exist- 
ence on the sole ground that he exists has been loudly and vehe- 
mently asserted; yet is a factitious sentiment notwithstanding — tend- 
ing to efface the distinctness of nature's landmarks, and to traverse 
those arrangements, by which she hath provided far better for the 
peace and comfort of society, nay for the more sure and liberal sup- 
port of all its members. It is true that nature, in fixing the princi- 
ples on which man has a right to the fruits of*the earth, to the ma- 
terials of his subsistence, has left out certain individuals of the human 
family — some outcast stragglers, who, on neither of nature's princi- 
ples, will be found possessed of any right or of any property. It is 
for their sake that human law hath interposed, in some countries of 
the world; and, by creating or ordaining a right for them, has en- 
deavoured to make good the deficiency of nature. But if justice 
alone could have ensured a right distribution for the supply of want, 
and if it must be through the medium of a right that the destitute 
shall obtain their maintenance — then, would there have been no need 
for another principle, which stands out most noticeably in our na- 
ture ; and compassion w r ould have been a superfluous part of the hu- 
man constitution. It is thus that nature provides for the unprovided 
— not by unsettling their limits which her previous education had 
established in all minds — not by the extension of a right to every 
man; but by establishing in behalf of those some men, whom acci- 
dent or the necessity of circumstances or even their own misconduct 
had left without a right, a compassionate interest in the bosom of 
their fellows. They have no advocate to plead for them at the bar 
of justice; and therefore nature hath furnished them with a gentler 
and more persuasive advocate, who might solicit for them at the bar 



152 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 

of mercy ; and, for their express benefit, hath given to most men a near 
for pity, to many a hand open as day for melting charity. But it is 
not to any rare, or romantic generosity, that she hath confided the relief 
of their wants. She hath made compassion one of the strongest, 
and, in spite of all their depravations to which humanity is ex- 
posed, one of the steadiest of our universal instincts. It were an in- 
tolerable spectacle even to the inmates of a felon's cell, did they be- 
hold one of their fellows in the agonies of hunger ; and rather than 
endure it, would they share their own scanty meal with them.* It 
were still more intolerable to the householders of any neighbourhood 
— insomuch that, where law had not attempted to supersede nature, 
every instance of distress or destitution would, whether in town or 
country, give rise to an internal operation of charity throughout 
every little vicinity of the land. The mischief which law hath 
done, by trying to mend the better mechanism which nature had in- 
stituted, is itself a most impressive testimony to the wisdom of na- 
ture. The perfection of her arrangements, is never more strikingly 
exhibited, than by those evils which the disturbance of them brings 
upon society — as when her law in the heart has been overborne by 
England's wretched law of pauperism ; and this violation of the na- 
tural order has been followed up, in consequence, by a tenfold in- 
crease both of poverty and crime. 

14. It is interesting to pursue the outgoings of such a system ; and 
to ascertain whether nature hath vindicated her wisdom, by the evil 
consequences of a departure from her guidance on the part of man — 
for if so, it will supply another proof, or furnish us with another 
sight of the exquisite adaptation which she hath established between 
the moral and the physical, or between the two worlds of mind and 
matter. Certain, then, of the parishes of England have afforded a 
very near exemplification of the ultimate state to which one and all 
of them are tending — a state which is consummated, when the poor 
rates form so large a deduction from the rents of the land, that it 
shall at length cease to be an object to keep them in cultivation/)- 

* The certainty of this operation is beautifully exemplified in a passage of Mr. 
Buxton's interesting' book on prisons — from which it appears that there is no allow- 
ance of food for the debtors, and a very inferior allowance of food to the criminals, 
who are confined in the gaol at Bristol. The former live on their own means or 
the casual charity of the benevolent. Instances have occurred when both of these 
resources failed them — and starvation would have ensued, had not the criminals, 
rather than endure the neighbourhood of such a Buffering, shared their own scanty 
pittance along with them — thus affording an argumentum a fortiore for a like 
strength of compassion throughout the land — seeing that it had survived the de- 
praving process which leads to the malefactor's cell. 

-(-The following is an extract from the report of a select committee on the poor 
law printed in 1817. "The consequences which are likely to result from this state 
<>f things, are clearly set forth in the petition from the parish of Wombridge in 
Salop, which is fast approaching to this State. The petitioners state ' that tlu- an- 
nual value of lands, mines and houses in this parish, is not sufficient to maintain the 
numerous and increasing poor, even if the same were set free of rent; and that 



THE ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 153 

It is thus that some tracts of country are on the eve of being ac- 
tually vacated by their proprietors ; and as their place of superin- 
tendence cannot be vacated by others, who have no right of super- 
intendence — the result might be, that whole estates shall be as effec- 
tually lost to the wealth and resources of the country, as if buried 
by an earthquake under water, or, as if some blight of nature has 
gone over them and bereft them of their powers of vegetation. Now 
we know not, if the whole history of the world furnishes a more 
striking demonstration than this, of the mischief that may be done, by 
attempting to carry into practice a theoretical speculation, which, 
under the guise and even with the real purpose of benevolence, has 
for its plausible object, to equalize among the children of one common 
humanity, the blessings and the fruits of one common inheritance. 
The truth is that we have not been conducted to the present state of 
our rights and arrangements respecting property, by any artificial 
process of legislation at all. The state of property in which we find 
ourselves actually landed, is the result of a natural process, under 
which, all that a man earns by his industry is acknowledged to be his 
own — or, when the original mode of acquisition is lost sight of, all 
that a man retains by long and undisturbed possession is felt and ac- 
knowledged to be his own also. Legislation ought to do no more than 
barely recognise these principles, and defend its subjects against the 
violation of them. And when it attempts more than this — when it 
offers to tamper with the great arrangements of nature, by placing 
the rights and the securities of property on a footing different from 
that of nature — when, as in the case of the English poor-laws, it 
does so, under the pretence and doubtless too with the honest design 
of establishing between the rich and the poor a nearer equality of en- 
joyment ; we know not in what way violated nature could have in- 
flicted on the enterprise a more signal and instructive chastisement, 
than when the whole territory of this plausible but presumptuous ex- 
periment is made to droop and to wither under it as if struck by a 
judgment from heaven — till at length that earth out of which the 
rich draw all their wealth and the poor all their subsistence, refuses* 
to nourish the children who have abandoned her ; and both parties 
are involved in the wreck of one common and overwhelming visita- 
tion. 

15. But we read the same lesson in all the laws ?nd movem°nts 
of political economy. The superior wisdom of nature is demon- 
strated in the mischief which is done by any aberration th refrom — 

these circumstances will inevitably compel the occupiers of lands and mines to re- 
linquish them ; and the poor will be without relief, or any known mode of obtaining 
it, unless some assistance be speedily afforded to them.' And your committee ap- 
prehend, from the petition before them, that this is one of many parishes that are 
fast approaching to a state of dereliction." 

The inquiries of the present Poor law Commission have led to a still more aggra- 
vated and confirmed view of the evils of the system. 



154 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 

when her processes are disturbed or intermeddled with by the wis- 
dom of man. The philosophy of free trade is grounded on the prin- 
ciple, that society is most enriched or best served, when commerce 
is left to its own spontaneous evolutions ; and is neither fostered by 
the artificial encouragements, nor fettered by the artificial restraints 
of human policy. The greatest economic good is rendered to the 
community, by each man being left to consult and to labour for his 
own particular good — or, in other words, a more prosperous result 
is obtained by the spontaneous play and busy competition of many 
thousand wills, each bent on the prosecution of its own selfishness, 
than by the anxious superintendence of a government, vainly at- 
tempting to medicate the fancied imperfections of nature, or to im- 
prove on the arrangements of her previous and better mechanism. 
It is when each man is left to seek, with concentrated and exclusive 
aim, his own individual benefit — it is then, that markets are best sup- 
plied ; that commodities are furnished for general use, of best qua- 
lity, and in greatest cheapness and abundance ; that the comforts of 
life are most multiplied ; and the most free and rapid augmentation 
takes place in the riches and resources of the commonwealth. Such 
a result, which at the same time not a single agent in this vast and 
complicated system of trade contemplates or cares for, each caring 
only for himself— strongly bespeaks a higher agent, by whose trans- 
cendental wisdom it is, that all is made to conspire so harmoniously 
and to terminate so beneficially. We are apt to recognise no higher 
wisdom than that of man, in those mighty concerts of human agen- 
cy — a battle, or a revolution, or the accomplishment of some pros- 
perous and pacific scheme of universal education ; where each who 
shares in the undertaking is aware of its object, or acts in obedience 
to some master-mind who may have devised and who actuates the 
whole. But it is widely different, when, as in political economy, 
some great and beneficent end both unlooked and unlaboured for, is 
the result, not of any concert or general purpose among the thousands 
who are engaged in it — but is the compound effect, nevertheless, of 
each looking severally, and in the strenuous pursuit of individual ad- 
vantage, to some distinct object of his own. When we behold the 
working of a complex inanimate machine, and the usefulness of its 
products — we infer, from the unconsciousness of all its parts, that 
there must have been a planning and a presiding wisdom in the con- 
struction of it. The conclusion is not the less obvious, we think it 
emphatically more so, when, instead of this, we behold in one of the 
animate machines of human society, the busy world of trade, a 
beneficent result, an optimism of public and economical advantage, 
wrought out by the free movements of a vast multitude o( men, not 
one of whom had tin; advantage o[ the public in all his thoughts. 
When i^ood is effected 1>\ a combination <>t* unconscious agents in- 
capable of all aim, wo ascribe the combination to an intellect that 
devised and gave it birth. When ";^n\ is effected by a combination 



THE ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 155 

of conscious agents capable of aim, but that an aim wholly different 
with each from the compound and general result of their united 
operations — this bespeaks a higher will and a higher wisdom than 
any by which the individuals, taken separately, are actuated. When 
we look at each striving to better his own condition, we see nothing 
in this but the selfishness of man. When we look at the effect of 
this universal principle, in cheapening and multiplying to the utter- 
most all the articles of human enjoyment, and establishing a thou- 
sand reciprocities of mutual interest in the world — we see in this 
the benevolence and comprehensive wisdom of God. 

16. The whole science of Political Economy is full of those ex- 
quisite adaptations to the wants and the comforts of human life, 
which bespeak the skill of a master-hand, in the adjustment of its 
laws, and the working of its profoundly constructed mechanism. 
We shall instance, first, that specialty in the law of prices, by which 
they oscillate more largely with the varieties in the supply of the 
necessaries, than they do in the mere comforts or luxuries of human 
life. The deficiency of one tenth in the imports of sugar, would 
not so raise the price of that article, as a similar deficiency in the 
supply of corn, which might rise even a third in price, by the diminu- 
tion of a tenth from the usual quantity brought to market. It is not 
with the reason, but with_ the beneficial effect of this phenomenon, 
that we at present have to do — not with its efficient, but with its 
final cause; or the great and obvious utilities to which it is subser- 
vient. Connected with this law of wider variation in the price than 
in the supply of first necessaries, is the reason why a population 
survive so well those years of famine, when the prices perhaps are 
tripled. This does not argue that they must be therefore three 
times worse fed than usual. The food of the country may only, for 
aught we know, have been lessened by a fourth part of its usual 
supply — or, in other words, the families may at an average be 
served with three-fourths of their usual subsistence, at the very time 
that the cost of it is three times greater than usual. And to make out 
this large payment, they have to retrench for the year in other arti- 
cles — altogether, it is likely, to give up the use of comforts ; and to 
limit themselves more largely in the second, than they can possibly 
do in the first necessaries of life — to forego perhaps many of the 
little seasonings, wherewith they wont to impart a relish to their 
coarse and humble fare — to husband more strictly their fuel ; and 
be satisfied for a time with vestments more threadbare, and even 
more tattered, that what in better times they would choose to appear 
in. It is thus that even although the first necessaries should be 
tripled in price for a season, and although the pecuniary income of 
the labouring classes should not at all be increased — yet they are 
found to weather the hardships of such a visitation. The food is 
still served out to them at a much larger proportion than the cost of 
it would in the first instance appear to indicate. And in the second 
instance they are enabled to purchase at this cost — because, and 



156 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 

more especially if they be a well-habited and well conditioned pea- 
santry, with a pretty high standard of enjoyment in ordinary years, 
they have more that they can save and retrench upon in a year of 
severe scarcity. They can disengage much of that revenue which 
before went to the purchase of dress, and of various luxuries that 
might for a season be dispensed with ; and so have the more to expend 
on the materials of subsistence. It is this which explains how roughly 
a population can bear to be handled, both by adverse seasons and 
by the vicissitudes of trade ; and how after all, there is a stability 
about a people's means, which will keep its ground against many 
checks, and amidst many fluctuations. It is a mystery and a mar- 
vel to many an observer, how the seemingly frail and precarious 
interest of the labouring classes should after all, have the stamina 
of such endurance as to weather the most fearful reverses both of 
commerce and of the seasons ; and that, somehow or other, we find 
after an interval of gloomy suffering and still gloomier fears, that 
the families do emerge again into the same state of sufficiency as 
before. We know not a fitter study for the philanthropist than the 
working of that mechanism, by which a process so gratifying is 
caused, or in which we will find greater reason to admire the ex- 
quisite skill of those various adaptations that must be referred to the 
providence of Him who framed society, and suited so wisely to each 
other the elements of which it is composed. 

17. There is nought which appears more variable than the opera- 
tion of those elements by which the annual supply of the national 
subsistence is regulated. How unlike in character is one season to 
another ; and between the extremes of dryness and moisture, how 
exceedingly different may be the amount of that produce on which 
the sustenance of man essentially depends. Even after that the pro- 
mise of abundance is well nigh realised, the hurricane of a single 
day, passing over the yet uncut but ripened corn ; or the rain of a 
few weeks, to drench and macerate the sheaves that lie piled to- 
gether on the harvest-field, were enough to destroy the food of mil- 
lions. We are aware of a compensation, in the varieties of soil and 
exposure, so that the weather which is adverse to one part of the 
country might be favourable to another; besides that the mischief 
of a desolating tempest in autumn must only be partial, from the 
harvest of the plains and uplands falling upon different months. 
Still, with all these balancing causes, the produce of different years 
is very far from being equalised; and its fluctuations would come 
charged with still more of distress and destitution to families — wore 
there not a counterpoise to the laws of nature, in what may be 
termed the laws of political economy. 

is. The price of human food does net immediately depend on the 
quantity <»f it that is produced, but on the quantity of it that is brought 
to market; and it is well that, in every year of scarcity, there should 
be instant causes put Into operation for increasing the latter quantity 
to the uttermost — so as to repair as much as possible the deficiencies: 



THE ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 157 

of the former. It is well that even a small short-coming in the crop 
should be so surely followed by a great advance of prices ; for this 
has instantly the effect of putting the families of the land upon that 
shortness of allowance, which might cause the supply, limited as it 
is, to serve throughout the year. But, besides the wholesome re- 
straint which is thus imposed on the general consumption of families, 
there is encouragement given by this dearness to abridge the con- 
sumption upon farms, and by certain shifts in their management 
to make out the greatest possible surplus, for the object of sale and 
supply to the population at large. With a high price, the farmer 
feels it a more urgent interest, to carry as much of his produce to 
market as he can ; and for this purpose, he will retrench to the 
uttermost at home. And he has much in his power. More par- 
ticularly, he can and does retrench considerably upon the feed of his 
cattle, and in as far as this wont to consist of potatoes or grain, there 
must an important addition be gained in this way to the supplies of 
the market. One must often have been struck with the compara- 
tive cheapness of animal food in a year of scarcity. This is be- 
cause of the greater slaughter of cattle which takes place in such a 
year, to save the heavy expense of maintaining them ; and which, 
besides affording a direct accession to the sustenance of man, light- 
ens still more the farm consumption, and disengages for sale a still 
greater amount of the necessaries of life. We do not say but that 
the farm suffers derangement by this change of regimen, from which 
it might take years to recover fully. But the evil becomes more 
tolerable by being spread. The horrors of extreme scarcity are 
prevented. The extremity is weathered at its furthest point. The 
country emerges from the visitation, and without, in all probability, 
the starvation of one individual; and all because, from the opera- 
tion of the causes that we have now explained, the supply of the 
market is made to oscillate within smaller limits than the crop — 
insomuch that though the latter should be deficient by one-third of 
the whole, the former might not be deficient by one-fifth or one-sixth 
of what is brought to market annually. 

19. This effect is greatly increased by the suspending of distilla- 
tion in years of scarcity. And after all, should the supplies be yet 
very short, and the prices therefore far more than proportionally 
high, this will naturally and of itself, bring on the importation of 
grain from foreign parts. If such be the variety of weather and 
soil, even within the limits of a cpuntry, as in some measure to 
balance the scarcity which is experienced in one set of farms by 
the comparative abundance of another set — this will apply with 
much greater force to a whole continent, or to the world at large. 
If a small deficiency in the home supply of grain induce a higher 
price than with other articles of commerce, this is just a provision 
for a securer and readier filling up of the deficiency by a movement 
from abroad — a thing of far greater importance with the necessa- 

14 



158 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 

ries than with the mere comforts or luxuries of life. That law of 
wider and more tremulous oscillation in the price of corn, which we 
have attempted to expound, is in itself a security for a more equal 
distribution of it over the globe by man, in those seasons when na- 
ture has been partial — so as to diffuse the more certainly and the 
more speedily through the earth that which has been dropped upon 
it unequally from Heaven. It is well that greater efficacy should 
thus be given to that corrective force, by which the yearly supplies 
of food are spread over the world with greater uniformity than they 
at first descend upon it; and, however much it may be thought to 
aggravate a people's hardships, that a slight failure in their home 
supply should create such a rise in the cost of necessaries — yet 
certainly it makes the impulse all the more powerful, by which corn 
flows in from lands of plenty to a land of famine. But what we 
have long esteemed the most beautiful part of this operation, is the 
instant advantage, which a large importation from abroad gives 
to our export manufactures at home. There is a limit in the rate of 
exchange to the exportation of articles from any country ; but up to 
this limit, there is a class of labourers employed in the preparation 
of these articles. Now the effect of an augmented importation upon 
the exchange is such as to enlarge this limit — so that our export 
traders can then sell with a larger profit, and carry out a greater 
amount of goods than before, and thus enlist a more numerous popu- 
lation in the service of preparing them. An increased importation 
always gives an impulse to exportation, so as to make employment 
spring up in one quarter, at the very time that it disappears in an- 
other. Or, rather, at the very time when the demand for a particu- 
lar commodity is slackened at home, it is stimulated abroad. We 
have already adverted to the way in which families shift their ex- 
penditure in a year of scarcity, directing a far greater proportion of 
it than usual to the first necessaries of life, and withdrawing it pro- 
portionally from the comforts, and even second necessaries of life. 
Cloth maybe regarded as one of the second necessaries; and it 
were woful indeed, if on the precise year when food was dearest, 
the numerous workmen engaged in this branch of industry should 
find that employment was scarcest. But in very proportion as they 
are abandoned by customers at home, do they find a compensation 
in the more quickened demand of customers from abroad. It is in 
these various ways that a country is found to survive so well its 
hardest and heaviest visitations; and even under a triple price for 
the first articles of subsistence, it has been found to emerge into 
prosperity again, without an authentic instance of starvation through- 
out all its families.* 

* It is right to mention that the four preceding paragraphs are taken in sub* 
itance, and very much in language, from a Former publication — ai presenting a 
notable adaptation of externa] to human nature which offered itself) in the course 

of other investigations, and at u time when we were not in quest of it. 



THE ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 159 

20. When any given object is anxiously cared for by a legislature, 
and all its wisdom is put forth in devising measures for securing or 
extending it — it forms a pleasing discovery to find, that what may 
have hitherto been the laborious aim and effort of human policy, has 
already been provided for, with all perfection and entireness in the 
spontaneous workings of human nature ; and that therefore, in this 
instance, the wisdom of the state has been anticipated by a higher 
wisdom — or the wisdom which presides over the ordinations of a 
human government, has been anticipated by the wisdom which or- 
dained the laws of human constitution. Of this there are manifold 
examples in political economy — as in the object of population, for 
the keeping up and increase of which, there was at one time a mis- 
placed anxiety on the part of rulers ; and the object of capital for 
the preservation and growth of which there is a like misplaced 
anxiety, and for the decay and disappearance of which there is an 
equally misplaced alarm. Both, in fact, are what may be termed 
self-regulating interests — or, in other words, interests which result 
with so much certainty from the checks and the principles that nature 
hath already instituted, as to supersede all public or patriotic regn- 
lation in regard to either of them. This has now been long under- 
stood on the subject of population ; but it holds equally true on the 
subject of capital. There is, on the one hand, throughout society 
enough of the appetite for enjoyment, to secure us against its need- 
less excess ; and, on the other, enough of the appetite for gain, to 
secure us against its hurtful deficiency. And, by a law of oscilla- 
tion as beautiful as that which obtains in the planetary system, and 
by which amid all disturbances and errors, it is upheld in its mean 
state indestructible and inviolate — does capital in like manner, con- 
stantly tend to a condition of optimism, and is never far from it, 
amid all the variations, whether of defect, or redundancy, to which 
it is exposed. When in defect, by the operation of high prices, it 
almost instantly recovers itself — when in excess, it, by the operation 
of low profits, or rather of losing speculations, almost instantly col- 
lapses into a right mediocrity. In the first case, the inducement is 
to trade rather than to spend ; and there is a speedy accumulation 
of capital. In the second case, the inducement is to spend rather 
than to trade ; and there is a speedy reduction of capital. It is thus 
that capital ever suits itself, in the way that is best possible, to the 
circumstances of the country — so as to leave uncalled for, any eco- 
nomic regulation by the wisdom of man ; and that precisely because 
of a previous moral and mental regulation by the wisdom of God. 

21. But if anything can demonstrate the hand of a righteous Deity 
in the nature and workings of what may well be termed a mecha- 
nism the very peculiar mechanism of trade ; it is the healthful impulse 
given to all its movements, wherever there is a reigning principle of 
sobriety and virtue in the land — so as to ensure an inseparable con- 
nexion between the moral worth and the economic comfort of a 



160 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 

people. Of this we should meet with innumerable verifications in 
political economy — did we make a study of the science, with the 
express design of fixing and ascertaining them. There is one very 
beautiful instance in the effect, which the frugality and foresight of 
workmen would have, to control and equalize the fluctuations of 
commerce — acting with the power of a fly in mechanics; and so 
as to save, or at least indefinitely to shorten, those dreary intervals 
of suspended work or miserable wages, which now occur so often, 
and with almost periodic regularity in the trading world. What 
constitutes a sore aggravation to the wretchedness of such a season, 
is the necessity of overworking — so as, if possible, to compensate 
by the amount of labour for the deficiency of its remuneration; and 
yet the inverse effect of this in augmenting and perpetuating that 
glut, or overproduction, which is the real origin of this whole cala- 
mity. It would not happen in the hands of a people elevated and 
exempted above the urgencies of immediate want ; and nothing will 
so elevate and exempt them, but their own accumulated wealth — 
the produce of a resolute economy and good management in pros- 
perous times. Would they only save during high wages, what 
they might spend during low wages — so as when the depression 
comes, to slacken, instead of adding to their work, or even cease 
from it altogether — could they only afford to live through the months 
of such a visitation, on their well-husbanded means, the commodi- 
ties of the overladen market would soon clear away; when, with 
the return of a brisk demand on empty warehouses, a few weeks 
instead of months would restore them to importance and prosperity 
in the commonwealth. This is but a single specimen from many 
others of that enlargement which awaits the labouring classes, after 
that by their own intelligence and virtue, they have won their way 
to it. With but wisdom and goodness among the common people, 
the whole of this economic machinery would work most beneficently 
for them — a moral ordination, containing in it most direct evidence 
for the wisdom and goodness of that Being by whose hands it is 
the machinery has been framed and constituted ; and who, the Pre- 
server and Governor, as well as the Creator of His works, sits with 
presiding authority over all its evolutions. 

22. But this is only one specimen out of the many — the particu- 
lar instance of a quality that is universal, and which may be detect- 
ed in almost all the phenomena and principles of the science; for 
throughout, political economy is but one grand exemplification of the 
alliance, which a God of righteousness hath established, between 
prudence and moral principle on the one hand, and physical comfort 
on the other. However obnoxious the modern doctrine iA' popula- 
tion, as expounded by Mr. Ma lth us, may have been, ami still is. to 
weak and limited sentimentalists, it is the truth which o\' all others 
sheds the greatesl brightness over the earthly prospects of humanity 
— and this in spite of the hideous, the yet sustained outcry which 



THE ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 1G1 

has risen against it. This is a pure case of adaptation, between the 
external nature of the world in which we live, and the moral nature 
of man, its chief occupier. There is a demonstrable inadequacy in 
all the material resources which the globe can furnish, for the in- 
creasing wants of a recklessly increasing species. But over and 
against this, man is gifted with a moral and a mental power by which 
the inadequacy might be fully countervailed; and the species, in 
virtue of their restrained and regulated numbers, be upholden on the 
face of our world, in circumstances of large and staple sufficiency. 
even to the most distant ages. The first origin of this blissful con- 
summation is in the virtue of the people ; but carried into sure and 
lasting effect by the laws of political economy, through the indisso- 
ble connexion which obtains between the wages and the supply of 
labour — so that in every given state of commerce and civilization, 
the amount of the produce of industry and of the produce of the soil,. 
which shall fall to the share of the workmen, is virtually at the deter- 
mination of the workmen themselves, who, by dint of resolute prudence 
and resolute principle together, may rise to an indefinitely higher sta- 
tus than they now occupy, of comfort and independence in the com- 
monwealth. This opens up a cheering prospect to the lovers of our 
race ; and not the less so, that it is seen through the medium of po- 
pular intelligence and virtue — the only medium through which it can 
ever be realized. And it sheds a revelation, not only on the hopeful 
destinies of man, but on the character of God — in having instituted 
this palpable alliance between the moral and the physical ; and so 
assorted the economy of outward nature to the economy of human 
principles and passions. The lights of modern science have made 
us apprehend more clearly, by what steps the condition and the 
character of the common people rise and fall with each other — in- 
somuch, that, while on the one hand their general destitution is the 
inevitable result of their general worthlessness, they, on the other, 
by dint of wisdom and moral strength, can augment indefinitely, 
not the produce of the earth, nor the produce of human industry, 
but that proportion of both which falls to their own share. Their 
economic is sure to follow by successive advances in the career of 
their moral elevation; nor do we hold it impossible, or even unlikely 
— that gaining, every generation, on the distance which now sepa- 
rates them from the upper classes of society, they shall, in respect 
both of decent sufficiency and dignified leisure, make perpetual 
approximations to the fellowships and enjoyments of cultivated life. 



14* 



162 



CHAPTER VIII. 

On the Relation in ivhich the special •Affections of our Nature stand 
to Virtue ; and on the Demonstration given forth by it, both to the 
Character of Man and the Character of God. 

1. There are certain broad and decisive indications of moral de- 
sign, and so of a moral designer, in the constitution of our world, 
which instead of expounding at great length, we have only stated 
briefly or incidentally — because, however effective as proofs, they 
possess a character of such extreme obviousness, as to require no 
anxious or formal explanation ; but, on the instant of being pre- 
sented to their notice, are read and recognised by all men. One 
patent example of this in the constitution of man, is the force and 
prevalence of compassion — an endowment which could not have 
proceeded from a malignant being; but which evinces the Author 
of our nature to be himself compassionate and generous. Another 
example may be given alike patent and recognisable, if not of a 
virtuous principle in the human constitution, at least of such an 
adaptation of the external world to that constitution — that, with the 
virtuous practice which that principle would both originate and 
sustain, the outward and general prosperity of man is indispensably 
connected. We mean the manifest and indispensable subserviency 
of a general truth in the world, to the general well-being of society. 
It is difficult to imagine, that a God of infinite power, and consum- 
mate skill of workmanship, but withal a lover of falsehood, would 
have devised such a world ; or rather, that he would not, in patron- 
age to those of his own likeness, have ordered the whole of its sys- 
tem differently — so reversing its present laws and sequences, as that, 
instead of honour and integrity, duplicity, disingenuousness and fraud, 
should have been the usual stepping-stones to the possession both of 
this world's esteem and of this world's enjoyments. How palpably 
opposite this is to the actual economy of things, the whole experi- 
ence of life abundantly testifies — making it evident, of individual 
examples, that the connexion between honesty and success in the 
world is the rule ; the connexion between dishonesty and success is 
the exception. But perhaps, instead of attempting the induction of 
particular cases, we should observe a still more distinct avowal of 
the character of God, of his favour for truth, and of the discounte- 
nance which he lias laid upon falsehood, by tracing, which could be 
easily done in imagination, the effect it would haw in society, it", all 
things else remaining unaltered, there should this single difference 
be introduced, of a predominant falsehood, instead oi' a predomi- 
nant truth in the world. The consequences of a universal distrust, 
in the almost universal Stoppage that would ensue ot" the useful in- 



\ 



RELATION OF THE SPECIAL AFFECTIONS, &C. 163 

terchanges of life, are too obvious to be enumerated. The world of 
trade would henceforth break up into a state of anarchy, or rather 
be paralyzed into a state of cessation and stillness. The mutual 
confidence between man and man, if not the mainspring of corn- 
mercers at least the oil, without which its movements were imprac- 
ticable. And were truth to disappear, and all dependence on human 
testimony to be destroyed, this is not the only interest which would 
be ruined by it. It would vitiate, and that incurably, every social 
and every domestic relationship ; and all the charities as well as all 
the comforts of life would take their departure from the world. 

2. Seeing then that the observation of honesty and truth is of such 
vital importance to society, that without it society would cease to 
keep together — it might be well to ascertain, by what special provi- 
sion it is in the constitution of man, that the practice of these vir- 
tues is upheld in the world. Did it proceed in every instance, from 
the natural power and love of integrity in the heart — we should 
rejoice in contemplating this alliance between the worth of man's 
character, on the one hand ; and the security, as well as the abun- 
dance of his outward comforts upon the other. And such, in fact, 
is the habitual disposition to truth in the world — that, in spite of the 
great moral depravation into which our species has obviously fallen, 
we probably do not overrate the proportion, when we affirm, that 
at least a hundred truths are uttered among men for one falsehood. 
But then in the vast majority of cases, there i^uno temptation to 
struggle with, nothing by which to try or to estimate the strength of 
the virtue so that, without virtue being at all concerned — in it, man's 
words might spontaneously flow in the natural current of his ideas, 
of the knowledge or the convictions which belong to him. But 
more than this. Instead of selfishness seducing man, which it often 
does, from the observations of truth and honesty — it vastly oftener 
is on the side of these observations. Generally speaking, it is not 
more his interest that he should have men of integrity to deal with — 
than that he himself should, in his own dealings, be strictly obser- 
vant of this virtue. To be abandoned by the confidence of his fel- 
lows, he would find to be not more mortifying to his pride, than 
ruinous to his prosperity in the world. We are aware that many 
an occasional harvest is made from deceit and injustice; but, in 
the vast majority of cases, men would cease to thrive when they 
ceased to be trusted. A man's actual truth is not more beneficial 
to others, than the reputation of it is gainful to himself. And there- 
fore it is, that, throughout the mercantile world, men are as sensi- 
tive of an aspersion on their name, as they would be of an encroach- 
ment on their property. The one, in fact, is tantamount to the other. 
It is thus, that, under the constraints of selfishness alone, fidelity 
and justice may be in copious and current observation among men; 
and while, perhaps, the principle of these virtues is exceedingly frail 



164 RELATION OF THE SPECIAL AFFECTIONS 

and uncertain in all hearts — human society may still subsist by the 
literal and outward observation of them. 

3. Here then is the example, not of a virtue in principle, but of a 
virtue in performance, with all the indispensable benefits of that per- 
formance, being sustained on the soil of selfishness. Were a pro- 
found observer of human life to take account of all the honesties of 
mercantile intercourse, he would find, that, in the general amount of 
them, they were mainly due to the operation of this cause ; or that 
they were so prevalent in society, because each man was bound to 
their observance, by the tie of his own personal interest — insomuch 
that if this particular tie were broken, it would as surely derange 
or break up the world of trade, as the world of matter would be- 
come an inert or turbid chaos, on the repeal or suspension of the 
law of gravitation. Confidence, the very soul of commercial enter- 
prise, and without which the transactions of merchandise were im- 
possible, is the goodly result, not. of that native respect which each 
man has for another's rights, but of that native regard which each 
man has for for his own special advantage. This forms another 
example of a great and general good wrought out for society — 
while each component member is intently set, only on a distinct and 
specific good for himself — a high interest, which could not have 
been confided to human virtue; but which has been skilfully extract- 
ed from the workings of human selfishness. In as far as truth and 
justice prevail in Jie world, not by the operation of principle but of 
policy, in so far n;he goodness of man has no share in it : but so 
beneficent a result out of such unpromising materials, speaks all 
the more emphatically both for the wisdom and the goodness of 
God. 

4. But in this there is no singularity. Other examples can be 
named, of God placing us in such circumstances, as to enlist even 
our selfishness on the side of virtuous conduct; or implanting such 
special affections, as do, by their own impulse, lead to that conduct, 
althougth virtuousness is not in all our thoughts. We are often so 
actuated, as to do what is best for society, at the very time that the 
good of society is forming no part of our concern ; and our foot- 
steps are often directed in that very path, which a moral regard to the 
greatest happiness of the species would dictate — without any moral 
purpose having been conceived or any moral principle been in ex- 
ercise within us. It is thus that our resentment operates as a check 
on the injuriousness of others, although our single aim be the pro- 
tection of our own interests — not the diminution of violence or in- 
justice in the world: And thus too our own dread of resentment 
from others, works the same outward effect, which honour or a re- 
spect for their rights would have had upon our transactions, which 
delicacy or a respect for their feelings would have hail upon our 
converse with those around us. It is in this way thai God makes 
the wrath of man to praise Him ; and the same is true o( other af- 



OF OUR NATURE TO VIRTUE. 165 

fections of our nature, which have less the character of selfishness, 
than either anger or fear. It is not because prompted by a sense of 
duty, but under the force of a mere natural proneness, that mo- 
thers watch so assiduously over the helplessness, and fathers toil so 
painfully for the subsistence of their children. Even compassion, 
with the speed and the discrimination of its movements, does for 
human life, more than man is capable of doing with his highest ef- 
forts of morality and reason — yet, not in the shape of a principle, 
but in the shape of a strong constitutional propensity. The good is 
rendered, not by man acting as he thinks that he ought, or under 
the force of a moral suggestion ; but man acting because he feels 
himself constrained, as if by the force of a physical necessity — not 
surely because, in the exercise of a sovereign liberty, he hath as- 
sumed a lordly ascendant over all the inferior passions of his nature; 
but because himself is lorded over by a law of his nature, having 
in it all the might and mastery of a passion. It is when, in the com- 
templation of phenomena like these, we are enabled to view man as 
an instrument, that we are also led more clearly to perceive who 
the agent is — not the being who is endowed, but the Being who 
has endowed him. The instinct of animals is a substitute for their 
wisdom; but, at the same time, a palpable demonstration of the 
wisdom of God. Man also has his instincts, which serve as the 
substitutes of moral goodness in him ; but which therefore mark all 
the more strongly, by their beneficial operation the goodness of his 
Maker.* 

5. To see how widely these gifts or endowments of our nature by 
the hand of God, may stand apart from aught like proper goodness 
or virtue in the heart of man — we have only to witness the similar 
provision which has been made for the care and preservation of the 
inferior animals. The anger which arouses to defence against in- 
jury, and the fear which prompts to an escape from it, and the 
natural affection which nourishes and rears forward the successive 
young into a condition of strength and independence for the pro- 
tection of themselves — these all have their indispensable uses, for 
upholding and perpetuating the various tribes of living creatures, 
who at the same time are alike incapable of morality and reason. 
There is no moral purpose served by these implantations, so far at 
least as respects the creatures themselves, with whom virtue is a thing 
utterly incompetent and unattainable. In reference to them, they 
may be viewed simply as beneficent contrivances, and as bespeak- 

* Dr. Smith in his Theory of Moral Sentiments has well remarked that — "though 
in accounting- for the operations of bodies, we never fail to distinguish the efficient 
from the final cause, in accounting for those of the mind, we are very apt to con- 
found those two different things with one another. When by natural principles 
we are led to advance those ends which a refined and enlightened reason would 
recommend to us, we are very apt to impute to that reason, as to their efficient 
cause, the sentiments and actions by which we advance those ends, and to imagine 
that to be the wisdom of man, which in reality is the wisdom of God." 



166 RELATION OF THE SPECIAL AFFECTIONS 

ing no other characteristic on the part of the Deity than that of pure 
kindness, or regard for the happiness and safety, throughout their 
respective generations, of the creatures whom he has made. This 
might help us to distinguish between those mental endowments of 
our own species, which have but for their object the comfort and 
protection ; and those which have for their object the character of 
man. The former we have in common with the inferior animals; 
and so far they only discover to us the kindness of the divine nature, 
or the parental and benevolent concern which God takes in us. The 
latter are peculiar to our race, and are indicated by certain pheno- 
mena of our mental nature, in which the beasts of the field and the 
fowls of the air have no share with us — by the conscience within 
us, asserting its own rightful supremacy over all our affections and 
doings ; by our capacities for virtue and vice, along with the plea- 
sures or the pains which are respectively blended with them ; and 
finally by the operation of habit, whose office, like that of a school- 
master, is to perfect our education, and to fix, in one way or other. 
but at length unmoveably, the character of its disciples. These 
present us with a distinct exhibition of the Deity, or a distinct and 
additional relation in which He stands to us — revealing to us, not 
Him only as the affectionate Father, and ourselves only as the fond- 
lings of His regard ; but Him also as the great moral Teacher, the 
Lawgiver, and moral Governor of man, and ourselves in a state of 
pupillage and probation, or as the subjects of a moral discipline. 

6. And here it may be proper to remark, that we understand by 
the goodness of God, not His benevolence or His kindness alone. 
The term is comprehensive of all moral excellence. Truth, and 
justice, and that strong repugnance to moral evil which has received 
the peculiar denomination of Holiness — these are all good moral 
properties, and so enter into the composition of perfect moral good- 
ness. There are some who have analysed, or, in the mere force of 
their own wishfulness, would resolve the whole character of the 
Deity into but one attribute — that of a placid undistinguishing ten- 
derness ; and, in virtue of this tasteful or sentimental but withal 
meagre imagination, would they despoil Him of all sovereignty and 
of all sacredness — holding Him forth as but the indulgent father, 
and not also as the righteous Governor of men. But this analysis is 
as impracticable in the character of God, as we have already found 
it to be in the character of man.* Unsophisticated conscience 
speaks differently. The forebodings of the human spirit in regard 
to futurity, as well as the present phenomena (A' human life, point to 
truth and righteousness, as distinct and stable and independent per- 
fections of the divine nature — however glossed or disguised they 
may have been, by the patrons of a mild and easy religion. In the 
various provisions of nature for the defence and security of the infe- 
rior animals, we may read but one lesson — the benevolence oi' its 

* Chap. vii. Art. 7. 



OF OUR NATURE TO VIRTUE. 167 

Author. In the like provisions, whether for the defence and pro- 
longation of human life, or the maintenance of human society — we 
read that lesson too, but other lessons in conjunction with it. For 
in the larger capacities of man, and more especially in his possession 
of a moral nature, do we regard him as born for something ulterior 
and something higher than the passing enjoyments of a brief and 
ephemeral existence. And so when we witness in the provisions, 
whether of his animal or mental economy, a subserviency to the 
protection, or even to the enjoyments of his transition state — we 
cannot disconnect this with subserviency to the remoter objects of 
that ultimate state whither he is going. In the instinctive fondness 
of parents, and the affinities of kindness from the fellows of our 
species, and even the private affections of anger and fear, — we be- 
hold so many elements conjoined into what may be termed an ap- 
paratus of guardianship ; and such an apparatus has been reared by 
Providence in behalf of every creature that breathes. But in the 
case of man, with his larger capacities and prospects, the terminat- 
ing object, even of such an intermediate and temporary apparatus, 
is not to secure for him, the safety or happiness of the present life. 
It is to fulfil the period, and subserve the purposes of a moral disci- 
pline. For meanwhile character is ripening; and, whether good or 
bad, settling by the power and operation of habit into a state of in- 
veteracy — and so, as to fix and prepare the disciples of a proba- # 
tionary state for their final destinations. What to the inferior ani- 
mals are the provisions of a life, are to man the accommodations of 
a journey. In the one we singly behold the indications of a divine 
benevolence. With the other, we connect the purposes of a divine 
administration ; and besides the love and liberality of a Parent, we 
recognise the designs of a Teacher, and Governor, and Judge. 

7. And these special affections, though their present and more 
conspicuous use be to uphold the existing economy of life, are not 
without their influence and their uses in a system of moral discipline. 
And it is quite obvious, that, ere we can pronounce on the strict and 
essential virtuousness of any human being, they must be admitted 
into the reckoning. In estimating the precise moral quality of any 
beneficence which man may have executed, it is indispensable to 
know, in how far he was schooled into it at the bidding of principle, 
and in how far urged forward to it by the impulse of a special affec- 
tion. To do good to another because he feels that he ought, is an 
essentially distinct exhibition from doing the same good, by the force 
of parental love, or of an instinctive and spontaneous compassion — 
as distinct as the strength of a constitutionally implanted desire is 
from the sense of a morally incumbent obligation. In as far as I 
am prompted to the relief of distress, by a movement of natural pity 
— in so far less is left for virtue to do. In as far as I am restrained 
from the out-breakings of an anger which tumultuates within, by 
the dread of a counter-resentment and retaliation from without — in 



168 RELATION OF THE SPECIAL AFFECTIONS 

so far virtue has less to resist. It is thus that the special affections 
may at once lighten the tasks and lessen the temptations of virtue ; 
and, whether in the way of help at one time or of defence at an- 
other, may save the very existence of a principle, which in its own 
unaided frailty, might, among the rude conflicts of life, have else 
been overborne. It is perhaps indispensable to the very being of 
virtue among men, that, by means of the special affections, a certain 
force of inclination has been superadded to the force of principle — 
we doubt not, in proportions of highest wisdom, of most exquisite 
skill and delicacy. But still the strength of the one must be deducted, 
in computing the real strength of the other ; and so the special affec- 
tions of our nature not only subserve a purpose in time, but are of 
essential and intimate effect in the processes of our moral prepara- 
tion, and will eventually tell on the high retributions and judgments 
of eternity. 

8. Man is not a utilitarian either in his propensities or in his prin- 
ciples. When doing what he likes — it is not always, it is not gene- 
rally, because of its perceived usefulness, that he so likes it. But 
his inclinations, these properties of his nature, have been so adapted 
both to the material world and to human society, that a great ac- 
companying or great resulting usefulness, is the effect of that par- 
ticular constitution which God hath given to him. And when doing 
what he feels that he ought, it is far from always because of its 
perceived usefulness, that he so feels. But God hath so formed our 
mental constitution, and hath so adapted the whole economy of ex- 
ternal things to the stable and everlasting principles of virtue, that, 
in effect and historical fulfilment, the greatest virtue and the greatest 
happiness are at one. But the union of these two does not consti- 
tute their unity. Virtue is not right, because it is useful ; but God 
hath made it useful, because it is right. He both loves virtue, and 
wills the happiness of his creatures — this benevolence of will, being 
itself, not the whole, but one of the brightest moralities in the cha- 
racter of the Godhead. He wills the happiness of man, but wills 
his virtue more; and accordingly, hath so constructed both the 
system of humanity, and the system of external nature, that, only 
through the medium of virtue, can any substantial or lasting happi- 
ness be realised. The utilitarians have confounded those two ele- 
ments, because of the inseparable yet contingent alliance, which a 
God of virtue hath established between them. The Cosmopolites 
are for merging all the particular affections into one; and would 
substitute in their place a general desire for the greatest possible 
amount of good toothers, as the alone guide and impellent of human 
conduct. And the Utilitarians are lor merging all the particular 
virtues into one; and would substitute in their place the greatest 
usefulness, as the alone principle to which every question respecting 
the morality of actions should he referred. The former would do 
away friendship, and patriotism, and all the partialities or even in- 



OF OUR NATURE TO VIRTUE. 169 

stincts of relationship, from the system of human nature. The latter 
would at least degrade, if not do away, truth and justice from the 
place which they now 7 hold in the system of Ethics. The desolating 
effect of such changes on the happiness and security of social life, 
would exhibit the vast superiority of the existent economy of things, 
over that speculative economy into which these theorists would 
transform it ; or, in other words, would prove by how mighty an 
interval, the goodness and the wisdom of God transcended both the 
goodness and the wisdom of man. 

9. The whole of this speculation, if followed out into its just and 
legitimate consequences, would serve greatly to humble and reduce 
our estimate of human virtue. Nothing is virtuous, but what is done 
under a sense of duty ; or done, simply and solely because it ought. 
It is only in as far as this consideration is present to the mind, and is 
of practical and prevalent operation there — that man can be said to 
feel virtuously, or to act virtuously. We should not think of affix- 
ing this moral characteristic to any performance however beneficial, 
that is done under the mere impulse of a headlong sensibility, with- 
out any sense or any sentiment of a moral obligation. In every 
good action, that is named good because useful to society, we 
should subduct or separate all which is due to the force of a special 
affection, that we might precisely ascertain how much or how little 
remains, which may be due to the force of principle. The inferior 
animals, destitute though they be of a moral nature and therefore 
incapable of virtue, share with us in some of the most useful and 
amiable instincts which belong to humanity ; and when we stop to 
admire the workings of nature's sensibility — whether in the tears 
that compassion sheds over the miseries of the unfortunate, or in the 
smiles and endearments which are lavished by a mother upon her 
infant family, we seldom reflect how little of the real and proper 
character of virtue is there. We accredit man, as if they were his 
own principles, with those instincts which the divinity hath im- 
planted within him ; and it aggravates the error, or rather the guilt 
of so perverse a reckoning — that, while we offer this incense to hu- 
manity, we forget all the while the hand of Him, by whom it is that 
humanity is so bountifully gifted and so beauteously adorned. 



15 



170 



CHAPTER IX. 



Miscellaneous Evidences of virtuous and benevolent Design, in the 
Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral Constitution of Man. 

1. It will be enough, if, after having led the way on a new territory 
of investigation, we shall select one or two out of the goodly num- 
ber of instances, as specimens of the richness and fertility of the 
land. We have already endeavoured to prove, why a number of 
distinct benefits, even though reducible by analysis into one prin- 
ciple or law, still affords not a solitary, but a multiple of evidence, of 
the wise and benevolent Creator.* This evidence, in fact, is pro- 
portioned to the number, not of efficient but final causes in nature — 
so that each separate example of a good rendered to humanity, in 
virtue of its actual constitution, may be regarded as a separate and 
additional evidence, of its having been formed by an artificer, at 
once of intelligent device and kind purposes. The reduction of 
these examples into fewer laws does not extenuate the argument for 
His goodness ; and it may enhance the argument for His wisdom. 

2. The first instance which occurs to us is that law of affection, 
by which its intensity or strength is proportioned to the helplessness 
of its object. It takes a direction downwards ; descending, for 
example, with much greater force from parents to children, than 
ascending from children to parents back again — save when they 
lapse again into second infancy, and the duteous devoted attendance 
by the helpful daughters of a family, throughout the protracted ail- 
ments and infirmity of their declining years, instead of an exception, 
is in truth a confirmation of the law — as much so, as the stronger 
attraction of a mother's heart towards the youngest of the family; 
or, more impressive still, her more special and concentrated regard 
towards her sickly or decrepit or even idiot boy. It is impossible 
not to recognise in this beautiful determination of nature, the 
benevolence of nature's God. 

3. Such instances could be greatly multiplied; and we invite the 
future explorers of this untrodden field to the task of collecting them. 
We hasten to instances of another kind, which we all the more 
gladly seize upon, as being cases of purest and strictest adaptation, 
not of the external mental, but of the external material world, to the 
moral constitution of man. 

4. The power of speech is precisely such an adaptation. Whe- 
ther we regard the organs of utterance and hearing in man, or the 
aerial medium by which sounds arc conveyed— do we behold a 
pure subserviency of the material to the mental system of our 

* Introductory Chapter. Art. 27, 28, 29. 



MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 171 

world. It is true that the great object subserved by it, is the action 
and reaction between mind and mind — nor can we estimate this ob- 
ject too highly, when we think of the mighty influence of language, 
both on the moral and intellectual condition of our species. Still it 
is by means of an elaborate material construction that this pathway 
has been formed, from one heart and from one understanding 
to another. And therefore it is, that the faculty of communica- 
tion by words, with all the power and flexibility which belong to it, 
by which the countless benefits of human intercourse are secured, 
and all the stores of sentiment and thought are turned into a com- 
mon property for the good of mankind, may well be ranked among 
the highest of the examples that we are now in quest of — it being 
indeed as illustrious an adaptation as can be named of External 
Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man. Of the 
converse of disembodied spirits we know nothing. But to man 
cased in materialism, certain material passages or ducts of con- 
veyance, for the interchange of thought and feeling between one 
mind and another seem indispensable. The exquisite provision 
which has been made for these, both in the powers of articulation 
and hearing, as also in that intermediate element, by the pulsations 
of which ideas are borne forward, as on so many winged messen- 
gers from one intellect to another — bespeaks, and perhaps more im- 
pressively than any other phenomena in nature, the contrivance of 
a supreme artificer, the device and finger of a Deity.* 

5. But articulate and arbitrary sound is not the only vehicle, 
either of meaning or sentiment. There is a natural as well as 
artificial language, consisting chiefly of expressive tones — though 
greatly reinforced both by expressive looks and expressive gestures. 
The voice, by its intonations alone, is a powerful instrument for the 
propagation of sympathy between man and man; and there is 
similarity enough between us and the inferior animals, in the natural 
signs of various of the emotions, as anger and fear and grief and 
cheerfulness, for the sympathy being extended beyond the limits of 
our own species, and over a great part of the sentient creation. 
We learn by experience and association the significancy of the merely 
vocal apart from vocables; for almost each shade of meaning, at 
least each distinct sensibility, has its own appropriate intonation — so 
that, without catching one syllable of the utterance, we can, from 
its melody alone, often tell what are the workings of the heart, and 
even what are the workings of the intellect. It is thus that music, 
even though altogether apart from words, is so powerfully fitted, 

• It will at once be seen that the same observations may be extended to written 
language, and to the fitness of those materials which subserve through its means, 
the wide and rapid communication of human thoughts. We in truth could have 
multiplied indefinitely such instances of adaptation as we are now giving — but we 
judge it better to have confined ourselves throughout the volume, to matters of a 
more rudimental and general character — leaving the manifold detail and fuller de- 
velopements of the argument to future labourers in the field. 



172 MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 

both to represent and to awaken the mental processes — insomuch 
that, without the aid of spoken characters, many a story of deepest 
interest is most impressively told, many a noble or tender sentiment 
is most emphatically conveyed by it. It says much for the native 
and original predominance of virtue — it may be deemed another 
assertion of its designed pre-eminence in the world, that our best 
and highest music is that which is charged with loftiest principle, 
whether it breathes in orisons of sacredness, or is employed to 
kindle the purposes and to animate the struggles of resolved pa- 
triotism ; and that never does it fall with more exquisite cadence on 
the ear of the delighted listener, than when attuned to the home 
sympathies of nature, it tells in accents of love or pity, of its woes 
and its wishes for all humanity. The power and expressiveness of 
music may well be regarded as a most beauteous adaptation of ex- 
ternal Nature to the Moral Constitution of Man — for what can be 
more adapted to his moral constitution, than that which is so help- 
ful as music eminently is, to his moral culture ? Its sweetest sounds 
are those of kind affection. Its sublimest sounds are those most ex- 
pressive of moral heroism ; or most fitted to solemnize the devotions 
of the heart, and prompt the aspirations and resolves of exalted 
piety. 

6. A philosophy of taste has been founded on this contemplation ; 
and some have contended that both the beauty and the sublimity of 
sounds are derived from their association with moral qualities alone. 
Without affirming that association is the only, or the universal cause, 
it must at least be admitted to have a very extensive influence over 
this class of our emotions. If each of the mental affections have its 
own appropriate intonation ; and there be the same or similar into- 
nations given forth, either by the inanimate creation or by the 
creatures having life which are inferior to man — then, frequent and 
familiar on every side of him, must be many of those sounds by 
which human passions are suggested, and the memory of things 
awakened which are fitted to affect and interest the heart. And 
thus it is, that, to the ear of a poet, all nature is vocal with sentiment ; 
and he can fancy a genius or residing spirit, in the ocean, or in the 
tempest, or in the rushing waterfall, or in the stream whose softer 
murmurs would lull him to repose — or in the mighty forest, when 
he hears the general sigh emitted by its innumerable leaves as they 
rustle in the wind, and from whose fitful changes he seems to catch 
the import of some deep and mysterious soliloquy. But the imagina- 
tion will be still more readily excited by the notes and the cries o\' 
animals, as when the peopled grove awakens to harmony : or when 
it is figured, that, amid the amplitudes of savage and solitary nature, 
the lioness robbed of her whelps, calls forth the echoes of the wilder- 
ness — making it to ring with the proclamation of her wrongs. But, 
without conceiving any such rare or extreme sensibility as this, there 
is a common, an every-day enjoyment which all have in the sounds 



MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 173 

of nature; and as far as sympathy with human emotions is awa- 
kened by them, and this forms an ingredient of the pleasure, it affords 
another fine example, of an adaptation in the external world to the 
mental constitution of its occupiers. 

7. But the same philosophy has been extended to sights as well as 
sounds. The interchange of mind with mind is not restricted to 
language. There is an interchange by looks also ; and the ever- va- 
rying hues of the mind are represented, not by the complexion of the 
face alone or the composition of its features, but by the attitude and 
gestures of the body.* It is thus that human sentiment or passion 
may come to be expressed by the colour and form and even the mo- 
tion of visible things ; by a kindred physiognomy for all the like 
emotions on the part of the inferior animals — nay, by a certain coun- 
tenance or shape in the objects of mute and unconscious nature. It is 
thus that a moral investment sits on the aspects of the purely material 
world ; and we accordingly speak of the modesty of the violet, the 
innocence of the lily, the commanding mountain, the smiling land- 
scape. Each material object has its character, as is amply set 
forth in the beautiful illustrations of Mr. Alison ; and so to the poet's 
eye, the whole panorama of nature is one grand personification, 
lighted up throughout by consciousness and feeling. This is the 
reason why in all languages, material images and moral character- 
istics are so blended and identified. It is the law of association which 
thus connects the two worlds of sense and of sentiment. Sublimity 
in the one is the counterpart to moral greatness in the other ; and 
beauty in the one is the counterpart to moral delicacy in the other. 
Both the graceful and the grand of human character are as effectu- 
ally embodied in the objects and scenery of nature, as in those im- 
mortal forms which have been transmitted by the hand of sculptors 
to the admiration of distant ages. It is a noble testimony to the 
righteousness of God, that the moral and the external loveliness are 
thus harmonized — as well as to the wisdom which has so adapted 
the moral and the material system to each other, that supreme virtue 
and supreme beauty are at one. 

"Mind, mind alone, bear witness earth and heaven! 

The living 1 fountain, in itself contains 

Of beauteous and sublime. 

There hand in hand sit paramount the graces ; 

There enthroned, celestial Venus with divinest airs 

Invites the soul to never fading 1 joy." Akenside. 

* We may here state that as the air is the medium by which sounds are conveyed 
— so light may be regarded as standing- in the same relation to those natural signs 
whether of colour, g-esture or attitude, which are addressed to the eye. Much could 
be said respecting 1 the adaptation of light to the moral constitution of man — arising 
from the power which the very observation of our fellow-men has in repressing, so 
long as we are under it, indecency or crime. The works of iniquity are called 
works of darkness. 

15* 



174 MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 

8. And we may here remark a certain neglect of external things 
and external influences, which, however enlightened or transcenden- 
tally rational it may seem, is at variance with truth of principle and 
sound philosophy. We should instance the undervaluing of the na- 
tural signs in eloquence, although their effect makes all the difference 
in point of impression and power between spoken and written lan- 
guage — seeing that, superadded to articulate utterance, the eye and 
the intonations and the gestures also serve as so many signals of 
conveyance for the transmission of sentiment from one mind to 
another. It is thus that indifference to manner or even to dress, 
may be as grievous a dereliction against the real philosophy of social 
intercourse — as indifference to the attitude and the drapery of figures 
would be against the philosophy of the fine arts. Both proceed on 
the forgetfulness of that adaptation, in virtue of which materialism 
is throughout instinct with principle, and both in its colouring and 
forms, gives forth the most significant expressions of it. On this 
ground too we would affirm, both of state ceremonial and profes- 
sional costume, that neither of them is insignificant; andthathe who 
in the spirit of rash and restless innovation would upset them, as if 
they were the relics of a gross and barbaric age, may be doing vio- 
lence not only to the usages of venerable antiquity, but to the still 
older and more venerable constitution of human nature — weakening 
in truth the bonds of social union, by dispensing with certain of those 
influences which the Great Author of our constitution designed lor 
the consolidation and good order of society. This is not accordant 
with the philosophy of Butler, who wrote on the " use of externals 
in matters of religion," — nor with the philosophy of those who pre- 
fer the findings of experience, however irreducible to system they 
may be, to all the subtleties or simplifications of unsupported 
theory.* 

9. Before quitting this subject, we remark, that it is no proof 
against the theory which makes taste a derivative from morality, 
that our emotions of taste may be vivid and powerful, while our 
principles of morality are so weak as to have no ascendant or go- 
verning influence over the conduct. This is no unusual phenomenon 
of our mysterious nature. There is a general homage rendered to 
virtue in the world ; but it is the homage, more of a dilettanti than o{ 
an obedient and practical devotee. This is not more surprising, than 
that the man of profligate habits should have a tasteful admiration 
of sacred pictures and sacred melodies; or that, with the heart of a 
coward, he should nevertheless catch the glow (^ at least a mo- 
mentary inspiration from the music of war and patriotism. It seems 
the effect and evidence of some great moral derangement, that there 
should be such an incongruity in subjective man between his taste 

•The perusal of those works which treat scientifically of the fine arts, as Sir 

Joshua Reynold*' Discourses, is well adapted to rebuke and rectify the light esti- 
mation, in which all sensible accompaniments are apt to Ik- held by us. 



MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 175 

and his principles ; and the evidence is not lessened but confirmed, 
when we observe a like incongruity in the objective nature by which 
he is surrounded — we mean, between the external mental and ex- 
ternal material world. We have only to open our eyes and see how 
wide, in point of loveliness, the contrast or dissimilarity is, between 
the moral and the material of our actual contemplation — the one 
coming immediately from the hand of God ; the other tainted and 
transformed by the spirit of man. We believe with Alison and 
others, that, to at least a very great extent, much of the beauty of 
visible things lies in association ; that it is this which gives its 
reigning expression to every tree and lake and waterfall, and which 
may be said to have impregnated with character the whole of the 
surrounding landscape. How comes it then, that, in the midst of 
living society, where we might expect to meet with the originals of 
all this fascination, we find scarcely any other thing than a tame and 
uninteresting level of the flat and the sordid and the ordinary — 
whereas, in that inanimate scenery, which yields but the faint and 
secondary reflection of moral qualities, there is, on every line and on 
every feature, so vivid an impress of loveliness and glory 1 One 
cannot go forth of the crowded city to the fresh and the fair of rural 
nature, without the experience, that, while in the moral scene, there 
is so much to thwart and to revolt and to irritate — in the natural 
scene, all is gracefulness and harmony. It reminds us of the con- 
trast which is sometimes exhibited, between the soft and flowery 
law T n of a cultivated domain, and the dark or angry spirit of its 
owner — of whom we might almost imagine, that he scowls from the 
battlements of his castle, on the intrusion of every unlicensed visiter. 
And again the question may be put — -whence is it that the moral 
picturesque in our world of sense, as it beams upon us from its woods 
and its eminences and its sweet recesses of crystal stream or of 
grassy sunshine, should yield a delight so unqualified — while the 
primary moral characteristics, of which these are but the imagery 
or the visible representation, should, in our world of human spirits, 
be so wholly obliterated, or at least so wofully deformed ? Does it 
not look as if a blight had come over the face of our terrestrial crea- 
tion, which hath left its materialism in a great measure untouched, 
while it has inflicted on man a sore and withering leprosy? L)o not 
the very openness and benignity which sit on the aspect of nature 
reproach him, for the cold and narrow and creeping jealousies that 
be at work in his own suspicious bosom ; and most impressively tell 
the difference between what man is, and what he ought to be 'I 

10. There are certain other adaptations ; but on which we forbear 
to expatiate.* Some of them indeed border on a territory distinct 

* It must be obvious that we cannot exhaust the subject, but only exemplify it, 
by means of a few specimens. There is an adaptation, which, had it occurred in 
time, might have been stated in the text — suggested by the celebrated question 
respecting the liberty of the human will. We cannot but admit how much it would 



176 MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 

from our own, if they do not altogether belong to it. The relation 
between food and hunger, between the object and the appetite, is an 
instance of the adaptation between external nature and man's phy- 
sical constitution — yet the periodical recurrence of the appetite itself, 
with its imperious demand to be satisfied, viewed as an impellent to 
labour even the most irksome and severe, has an important effect 
both on the moral constitution of the individual and on the state of 
society. The.superfices of the human body, in having been made 
so exquisitely alive at every pore to the sensations of pain, may be 
regarded as nature's defensive covering against those exposures from 
without, which else might injure or destroy it. This is purely a 
physical adaptation, but it involves a moral adaptation also ; for this 
shrinking and sensitive avoidance, at the first approaches of pain 
affords a similar protection against certain hazards from within — as 
self-mutilation in the moment of the spirit's wantonness, or even 
self-destruction in the moment of its despair. But, without enlarg- 
ing further on specific instances, we shall now advert to one subject, 
furnished by the history of moral science ; and replete, we have long 
thought, with the materials of a very strong and comprehensive ar- 
gument. 

11. We have already adverted to the objective nature of virtue, 
and the subjective nature of man, as forming two wholly distinct 
objects of contemplation. It is the latter and not the former which 
indicates the moral character of God. The mere system of ethical 
doctrine is no more fitted to supply an argument of this character, 
than would the system of geometry. It is not geometry in the ab- 
stract, but geometry as embodied in the heavens, or in the exquisite 

have deteriorated the constitution of humanity, or rather destroyed one of its no- 
blest and most essential parts, had it been so constructed, as that either man was 
not accountable for his own actions, or that these actions were free in the sense 
contended for by one of the parties in the controversy — that is, were so many ran- 
dom contingencies which had no parentage in any events or influences that went 
before them, or occupied no place in a train of causation. Of the reasoners on the 
opposite sides of this sorely agiHrced question — the one contending for the moral 
liberty, and the other for the physical necessity of human actions — it is clear that 
there are many who hold the one to be destructive of the other. But what the 
wisdom of man cannot argumentatively harmonize in the world of speculation, the 
power and wisdom of God have executively harmonized in the world of realities — 
so that man, on the one hand, irresistibly feels himself to be an accountable crea- 
ture ; and yet, on the other, his doings are as much the subject of calculation and 
of a philosophy, as many of those classes of phenomena in the materia] world, 
which, fixed and certain in themselves, are only uncertain to us, not because of 
their contingency, but because of their complication. We are not sure if the evo- 
lutions of the will are more beyond the reach of prediction than the evolutions of 
the weather. It is this union of the moral character with the historical certainty 
of our volitions, which has proved so puzzling, to many of our controversialists ; 
but in proportion to the difficulty felt by us in the Adjustment of these two ele- 
ments, should he our admiration of that profound and exquisite skill which has 
mastered tin- apparent incongruity — so that while every voluntary action of man 

is, in point of reckoning 1 , the subject of a moral, it is, in point of result, no less the 
subject of a physical law. 



MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 177 

structures of the terrestrial physics — which bespeaks the skill of the 
artificer who framed them. In like manner it is not moral science 
in the abstract — but the moral constitution of beings so circum- 
stanced and so made, that virtue is the only element in which their 
permanent individual or social happiness can be realized, which be- 
speaks the great Parent of the human family to be Himself the lover 
and the exemplar of righteousness. In a word, it is not from an 
abstraction, but from the facts of a creation, that our lesson respect- 
ing the divine character, itself a fact, is to be learned ; and it is by 
keeping this distinction in view, that we obtain one important help 
for drawing from the very conflict and diversity of moral theories 
on the nature of virtue, a clear, nay a cumulative argument for the 
virtuous nature of the Godhead. 

12. The painful suspicion is apt to intrude upon us, that virtue 
may not be a thing of any substance or stability at all — when we 
witness the confusion and the controversy into which moralists have 
fallen, on the subject of its elementary principles. But, to allay this 
feeling, it should be observed, in the first place, that, with all the 
perplexity which obtains on the question of what virtue, in the ab- 
stract or in its own essential and constituting quality, is — there is a 
pretty general agreement among moralists, as to what the separate 
and specific virtues of the human character are. According to the 
selfish system, temperance may be a virtue, because of its subser- 
vience to the good of the individual ; while by the system of utility- 
it is a virtue, because through its observation, our powers and ser- 
vices are kept entire for the good of society. But again, beside 
this controversy which relates to the nature of virtue in itself, and 
which may be termed the objective question in morals — there is a 
subjective or an organic question which relates, not to the existence, 
but to the origin and formation of the notion or feeling of virtue in 
the human mind. The question, for example, whether virtue be a 
thing'of opinion or a thing of sentiment, belongs to this class. Now, 
in regard to all those questions which respect the origin or the pedi- 
gree of our moral judgments, it should not be forgotten, that, while 
the controvertists are at issue upon this, they are nearly unanimous, 
as to morality itself being felt by the mind as a matter of supreme 
obligation. They dispute about the moral sense in man, or about 
the origin and constitution of the court of conscience ; but they have 
no dispute about the supreme authority of conscience — even as, in 
questions of civil polity and legislation, there may be no dispute 
about the rightful authority of some certain court, while there may 
be antiquarian doubts and differences on the subjects of its origin 
and formation. Dr. Smith, for example, while he has his own pe- 
culiar views on the origin of our moral principles, never questions 
their authority. He differs from others, in regard to the rat onale, 
or the anterior steps of that process, which at length terminates in 
a decision of the mind, on the merit or demerit of a particular ac- 



178 MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 

tion. The Tightness and the supremacy of that decision are not in 
the least doubted by him. There may be a metaphysical contro- 
versy about the mode of arriving at our moral judgment, and at the 
same time a perfect concurrence in it as the guide and the regulator 
of human conduct — just as there may be an anatomical controversy 
about the structure of the eye or the terminations of the optic nerve, 
and a perfect confidence with all parties, in the correctness of those 
intimations which the eye gives, of the position of external objects 
and their visible properties. By attending to this we obtain a se- 
cond important help for eliciting from the diversity of theories on 
the nature of virtue, a cumulative argument for the virtuous nature 
of the Godhead. 

13. When the conflict then of its opposing theories, would seem 
to bring fearful insecurity on moral science, let it not be forgotten,, 
that the very multitude of props and securities, by which virtue is 
upholden, is that which has given rise to the conflict. There is 
little or no scepticism, in regard to the worth or substantive being 
of morality, but chiefly in regard to its sustaining principle ; and it 
is because of so much to sustain it, or of the many distinct and firm 
props which it rests upon, that there has been such an amount of 
ethical controversy in the world. There has been many a combat, 
and many a combatant — not because of the baselessness of morality, 
but because it rests on a basis of so many goodly pillars, and be- 
cause of such a varied convenience and beauty in the elevation of 
the noble fabric. The reason of so much controversy is, that each 
puny controversialist, wedded to his own exclusive view of an edi- 
fice too mighty and majestic for his grasp, has either selected but 
one of the upholding props, and affirmed it to be the only support of 
the architecture; or attended to but one of its graces and utilities, 
and affirmed it to be the alone purpose of the magnificent building. 
The argument of each, whether on the foundation of virtue or on its 
nature, when beheld aright, will be found a distinct trophy to its 
worth — for each can plead some undoubted excellence or good 
effect of virtue in behalf of his own theory. Each may have so 
magnified the property which himself had selected — as that those 
properties of virtue which others had selected, were thrown into the 
shade, or at most but admitted as humble attendants, in the retinue 
of his own great principle. And so, the controversy is not, whether 
morality be a solidly constituted fabric ; but what that is which con- 
stitutes its solidity, and which should be singled out as the keystone 
of the fabric. Each of the champions in this warfare has fastened 
on a different keystone; and each pushes the triumph against his 
adversary by a demonstration of its firmness. Or in other words. 
virtue is compassed about with such a number of securities, and 
possesses such a superabundance of strength, as to have given room 
for the question that was raised about Samson of old — what that is 
wherein its great strength lies. It is like the controversy which 



MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. . 179 

sometimes arises about a building of perfect symmetry — when sides 
are taken, and counter-explanations are advanced and argued, about 
the one characteristic or constituting charm, which hath conferred 
upon it so much gracefulness. It is even so of morality. Each 
partisan hath advocated his own system ; and each, in doing so, 
hath more fully exhibited some distinct property or perfection of 
moral rectitude. Morality is not neutralized by this conflict of tes- 
timonies ; but rises in statelier pride, and with augmented security, 
from the foam and the turbulence which play around its base. To 
her this conflict yields, not a balance, but a summation of testimo- 
nies ; and, instead of an impaired, it is a cumulative argument, that 
may be reared out of the manifold controversies to which she has 
given rise. For when it is asserted by one party in the strife, that 
the foundation of all morality is the right of God to the obedience of 
his creatures — let God's absolute right be fully conceded to them. 
And when others reply, that, apart from such right, there is a native 
and essential rightness in morality, let this be conceded also. There 
is indeed such a rightness, which, anterior to law, hath had ever- 
lasting residence in the character of the Godhead; and which 
prompted him to a law, all whose enactments bear the impress of 
purest morality. And when the advocates of the selfish system 
affirm, that the good of self is the sole aim and principle of virtue ; 
while we refuse their theory, let us at least admit the fact to which 
all its plausibility is owing — that nought conduces more surely to 
happiness, than the strict observation of all the recognised morali- 
ties of human conduct. And when a fourth party affirms that 
nought but the useful is virtuous ; and, in support of their theory, 
can state the unvarying tendencies of virtue in the world towards 
the highest good of the human family — let it forthwith be granted, 
that the same God, who blends in his own person, both the right- 
ness of morality and the right of law, that He hath so devised the 
economy of things and so directs its processes, as to make peace 
and prosperity follow in the train of righteousness. And when the 
position that virtue is its own reward, is cast as another dogma into 
the whirlpool of debate, let it be fondly allowed, that the God, who 
delights in moral excellence himself, hath made it the direct minister 
of enjoyment to him, who, formed after his own image, delights in 
it also. And w T hen others, expatiating on the beauty of virtue, 
would almost rank it among the objects of taste rather than of prin- 
ciple — let this be followed up by the kindred testimony, that, in all 
its exhibitions, there is indeed a supreme gracefulness; and that God, 
rich and varied in all the attestations which He has given of his re- 
gard to it, hath so endowed His creatures, that, in moral worth, 
they have the beatitudes of taste as well as the beatitudes of con- 
science. And should there be philosophers who say of morality 
that it is wholly founded upon the emotions — let it at least be grant- 
ed, that He whose hand did frame our internal mechanism, has at- 



180 MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 

tuned it in the most correct and delicate respondency, with all the 
moralities of which human nature is capable. And should there be 
other philosophers who affirm that morality hath a real and substan- 
tive existence in the nature of things, so as to make it as much an 
object of judgment distinct from him who judges, as are the eternal 
and immutable truths of geometry — let it with gratitude be acknow- 
ledged that the mind is so constituted as to have the same firm hold 
of the moral which it has of the mathematical relations ; and if this 
prove nothing else, it at least proves, that the Author of our constitu- 
tion hath stamped there, a clear and legible impress on the side of 
virtue. We should not exclude from this argument even the de- 
grading systems of Hobbes and Mandeville ; the former represent- 
ing virtue as the creation of human policy, and the latter repre- 
senting its sole principle to be the love of human praise — for even 
they tell thus much, the one that virtue is linked with the well-being 
of the community, the other that it has an echo in every bosom. 
We would not dissever all these testimonies ; but bind them together 
into the sum and strength of a cumulative argument. The contro- 
versialists have lost themselves, but it is in a wilderness of sweets — 
out of which the materials might be gathered, of such an incense at 
the shrine of morality, as should be altogether overpowering. Each 
party hath selected but one of its claims ; and, in the anxiety to exalt 
it, would shed a comparative obscurity over all the rest. This is 
the contest between them — not whether morality be destitute of 
claims ; but what, out of the number that she possesses, is the great 
and pre-eminent claim on which man should do her homage. Their 
controversy perhaps never may be settled ; but to make the cause 
of virtue suffer on this account, would be to make it suffer from the 
very force and abundance of its recommendations. 

14. But this contemplation is pregnant with another inference, 
beside the worth of virtue — even the righteous character of Him, 
who, for the sake of upholding it hath brought such a number of 
contingencies together. When we look to the systems of utility 
and selfishness, let us look upwardly to Him, through whose ordi- 
nation alone it is, that virtue hath such power to prosper the 
arrangements of life and of society. Or when told of the principle 
that virtue is its own reward, let us not forget him who so consti- 
tuted our moral nature, as to give the feeling of an exquisite charm, 
both in the possession of virtue and in the contemplation of it. Or 
when the theory of a moral sense oilers itself to our regards, let us 
bear regard along with it to that God, who constructed this organ 
of the inner man, and endowed it. with all its perceptions and all its 
feelings. In the utility wherewith He hath followed up the various 
observations of moral rectitude; in the exquisite relish which he hath 
infused into the rectitude itself; in the law of conformity thereto 
which he hath written on the hearts of all men: in the aspect of 
eternal and unchangeable fitness, under which lie hath made it 
manifest to every conscience — in these, we behold the elements of 



MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 181 

many a controversy, on the nature of virtue ; but in these, -when 
viewed aright, we also behold a glorious harmony of attestations to 
the nature of God. It is thus that the perplexities of the question, 
when virtue is looked to as but a thing of earthly residence, are all 
done away, when we carry the speculation upward to heaven. 
They find solution there ; and cast a radiance over the character of 
Him who hath not only established in righteousness His throne, but, 
by means of a rich and varied adaptation, hath profusely shed 
over the universe that He hath formed, the graces by which He 
would adorn, and the beatitudes by which He would reward it. 

15. Although the establishment of a moral theory is not now our 
proper concern, w r e may nevertheless take the opportunity of 
expressing our dissent from the system of those, who would resolve 
virtue, not into any native or independent Tightness of its own, but 
unto the will of Him who has a right to all our services. Without 
disparagement to the Supreme Being, it is not His law which con- 
stitutes virtue ; but, far higher homage both to Him and to His law 
the law derives all its authority and its being from a virtue of 
anterior residence in the character of the Divinity. It is not by 
the authority of any law over Him, that truth and justice and good- 
ness and all the other perfections of supreme moral excellence, have, 
in His person, had their everlasting residence. He had a nature, 
before that He uttered it forth into a law. Previous to creation, 
there existed in His mind, all those conceptions of the great and 
the graceful, which He hath embodied into a gorgeous universe; 
and of which every rude sublimity of the wilderness, or every fair 
and smiling landscape, gives such vivid representation. And in like 
manner, previous to all government, there existed in His mind, those 
principles of righteousness, which afterwards, with the right of an 
absolute sovereign, He proclaimed into a law. Those virtues of 
which we now read on a tablet of jurisprudence were all transcribed 
and taken off from the previous tablet of the divine character. The 
law is but a reflection of this character. In the fashioning of this 
law, He pictured forth Himself; and we, in the act of observing 
His law, are only conforming ourselves to His likeness. It is there 
that we are to look for the primeval seat of moral goodness. Or, in 
other words, virtue has an inherent character of her own — apart 
from law, and anterior to all jurisdiction. 

16. Yet the right of God to command, and the rightness of His 
commandments, are distinct elements of thought, and should not be 
merged into one another. We should not lose sight of the indivi- 
duality of each, nor identify these two things — because, instead of 
antagonists, they do in fact stand side by side, and act together in 
friendly co-operation. Because two influences are conjoined in 
agency, that is no reason why they should be confounded in thought. 
Their union does not constitute their unity — and though, in the 
conscience of man, there be an approbation of all rectitude ; and all 

16 



182 THE CAPACITIES OF THE WORLD FOR 

rectitude, be an obligation laid upon the conduct of man by the 
divine law — yet still, the approbation of man's moral nature is one 
thing, and the obligation of God's authority is another. 

17. That there is an approval of rectitude, apart from all legal 
sanctions and legal obligations, there is eternal and unchangeable 
demonstration in the character of God Himself. He is under no 
law, and owns the authority of no superior. It is not by the force 
of sanctions, but by the force of sentiments that the divinity is 
moved. Morality with Him is not of prescription, but of spontane- 
ous principle alone ; and He acts virtuously, not because He is bid- 
den ; but because virtue hath its inherent and eternal residence in 
His own nature. Instead of deriving morality from law, we should 
derive law, even the law of God, from the primeval morality of His 
own character ; and so far from looking upwardly to His law as 
the fountain of morality, do we hold it to be the emanation from 
a higher fountain that is seated in the depths of His unchangeable 
essence, and is eternal as the nature of the Godhead. 

18. The moral hath antecedency over the juridical, God acts 
righteously, not because of jurisdiction by another, but because of a 
primary and independent justice in Himself. It was not law which 
originated the moralities of the divine character ; but these moralities 
are self-existent and eternal as is the being of the Godhead. The 
virtues had all their dwelling-place in the constitution of the Divinity 
• — ere He stamped the impress of them on a tablet of jurisprudence. 
There was an inherent, before there was a preceptive morality ; and 
righteousness, and goodness, and truth, which all are imperative 
enactments of law, were all prior characteristics, in the underived 
and uncreated excellence of the Lawgiver. 



CHAPTER X. 

On the capacities of the World for making a virtuous Species happy : 
and the Argument deducible from this, both for the character of 
God, and the Immortality of Man. 

1. We have already stated the distinction, between the theology 
of those, who would make the divine goodness consist o{' all mora] 
excellence; and of those, who would make it consist of benevolence 
alone. Attempts have been made to simplify the science of morals, 
by the reduction of its various duties or obligations into one element 
— as when it is alleged, that t ho virtuonsness o\' every separate mo- 
lality is reducible into benevolence, which is regarded as the central. 
or as the great master and generic virtue that is comprehensive oi' 



MAKING A VIRTUOUS SPECIES HAPPY. 183 

them all. There is a theoretic beauty in this imagination — yet it 
cannot be satisfactorily established, by all our powers of moral or 
mental analysis. We cannot rid ourselves of the obstinate impres- 
sion, that there is a distinct and native virtuousness, both in truth and 
in justice, apart from their subserviency to the good of men; and 
accordingly, in the ethical systems of all our most orthodox ex- 
pounders, they are done separate homage to — as virtues standing 
forth in their own independent character, and having their own 
independent claims both on the reverence and observation of man- 
kind. Now, akin with this attempt to generalise the whole of virtue 
into one single morality, is the attempt to generalise the character 
of God into one single moral perfection. Truth and justice have 
been exposed to the same treatment, in the one contemplation as in 
the other — that is, regarded more as the derivatives from the higher 
characteristic of benevolence, than as distinct and primary charac- 
teristics themselves. The love of philosophic simplicity may have 
led to this in the abstract or moral question ; but something more 
has operated in the theological question. It falls in with a still 
more urgent affection than the taste of man ; it falls in with his hope 
and his sense of personal interest, that the truth and justice of the 
Divinity should be removed, as it were, to the back-ground of this 
perspective. And accordingly, this inclination to soften, if not to 
suppress, the sterner affections of righteousness and holiness, appears, 
not merely in the pleasing and poetic effusions of the sentimental, 
but also in the didactic expositions of the academic theism. It is 
thus that Paley, so full and effective, and able in his demonstrations 
of the natural, is yet so meagre in his demonstrations of the moral 
attributes. It is, in truth, the general defect, not of natural theology 
in itself — but of natural theology, as set forth at the termination of 
ethical courses, or as expounded in the schools. In this respect, the 
natural theology of the heart, is at variance, with the natural theo- 
logy of our popular and prevailing literature. The one takes its 
lesson direct from conscience, which depones to the authority of 
truth and justice, as distinct from benevolence ; and carries this lesson 
upwards, from that tablet of virtue which it reads on the nature of 
man below, to that higher tablet upon which it reads the character 
of God above. The other again, of more lax and adventurous 
speculation, would fain amalgamate all the qualities of the Godhead 
into one ; and would make that one the beautiful and undistinguish- 
ing quality of tenderness. It would sink the venerable or the awful 
into the lovely ; and to this it is prompted, not merely for the sake 
of theoretic simplicity — but in order to quell the alarms of nature, 
the dread and the disturbance which sinners feel, when they look to 
their sovereign in heaven, as a God of judgment and of unspotted 
holiness. Nevertheless the same conscience which tells what is 
sound in ethics, is ever and anon suggesting what is sound in theo- 
logy — that we have to do with a God of truth, that we have to do 



184 THE CAPACITIES OF THE WORLD FOR 

with a God of righteousness; and this lesson is never perhaps ob- 
literated in any breast, by the imagery, however pleasing, of a uni- 
versal parent, throned in soft and smiling radiance, and whose 
supreme delight is to scatter beatitudes innumerable through a 
universal family. We cannot forget, although we would, that 
justice and judgment are the habitation of His throne ; and that His 
dwelling-place is not a mere blissful "elysium or paradise of sw ? eets, 
but an august and inviolable sanctuary. It is an elysium, but only 
to the spirits of the holy ; and this sacredness, we repeat, is imme- 
diately forced upon the consciousness of every bosom, by the moral 
sense which is within it — however fearful a topic it may be of recoil 
to the sinner, and of reticence in the demonstrations of philosophy. 
The sense of heaven's sacredness is not a superstitious fear. It is the 
instant suggestion of our moral nature. What conscience apprehends 
virtue to be in itself, that also it will apprehend virtue to be in the 
Author of conscience; and if truth and justice be constituent elements 
in the one, these it will regard as constituent elements in the other 
also. It is by learning direct of God from the phenomena of human 
conscience ; or taking what it tells us to be virtues in themselves, 
for the very virtues of the Godhead, realised in actual and living 
exemplification upon His character — it is thus that we escape from 
the illusion of poetical religionists, who, in the incense which they 
offer to the benign virtues of the parent, are so apt to overlook the 
virtues of the Lawgiver and Judge. 

2. When we take this fuller view of God's moral nature — when 
we make account of the righteousness as well as the benevolence — 
when we yield to the suggestion of our own hearts, that to Him 
belongs the sovereign state, and, if needful, the severity of the law- 
giver, as well as the fond affection of the parent — when we assign 
to Him the character, which, instead of but one virtue, is compre- 
hensive of them all — we are then on firmer vantage-ground for the 
establishment of a natural Theology, in harmony, both with the les- 
sons of conscience, and with the phenomena of the external world. 
Many of our academic theists have greatly crippled their argument, 
by confining themselves to but one feature in the character of the 
Divinity — as if His only wish in reference to the creatures that He 
had made, was a wish for their happiness; or as if, instead of the 
subjects of a righteous and moral government, they were but the 
nurslings of His tenderness. They have exiled and put forth every- 
thing like jurisprudence from the relation in which God stands to 
man; and by giving the foremost place in their demonstrations to 
the mere beneficence of the Deity, they have made the difficulties oi 
the subject far more perplexing and unresolvable than they Deeded to 
have been. For with benevoience alone we cannot even extenuate 
and much less extricate ourselves, from the puzzling difficulty o{ 
those physical sufferings to which the sentient ereation, as far as our 
acquaintance extends with it, is universally liable. It is only by 



MAKING A VIRTUOUS SPECIES HAPPY. 185 

admitting the sanctities along with what may be termed the humani- 
ties of the divine character, that this enigma can be at all alleviated. 
Whereas, if, apart from the equities of a moral government, we 
look to God in no other light, than mere tasteful and sentimental 
religionists do, or as but a benign and indulgent Father whose sole 
delight is the happiness of his family — there are certain stubborn ano- 
malies which stand in the way of this frail imagination, and would 
render the whole subject a hopeless and utterly intractable mystery. 

3. A specimen of the weakness which attaches to the system of 
Natural Theology, when the infinite benevolence of the Deity is the 
only element which it will admit into its explanations and its reason- 
ings, is the manner in which its advocates labour to dispose of the 
numerous ills, wherewith the world is infested. They have recourse 
to arithmetic — balancing the phenomena on each side of the ques- 
tion, as they would the columns of a leger. They institute respec- 
tive summations of the good and the evil ; and by the preponderance 
of the former over the latter, hold the difficulty to be resolved. The 
computation is neither a sure nor an easy one; but even under the 
admission of its justness, it remains an impracticable puzzle — why 
under a Being of infinite power and infinite benevolence, there should 
be suffering at all. This is an enigma which the single attribute of 
benevolence cannot unriddle, or rather the very enigma which it has 
created — nor shall we even approximate to the solution of it, without 
the aid of other attributes to help the explanation. 

4. It is under the pressure of these difficulties that refuge is taken 
in the imagination of a future state — where it is assumed that all the 
disorders of the present scene are to be repaired, and full compensa- 
tion made for the sufferings of our earthly existence. It is affirmed, 
that although the body dies the soul is unperishable, and, after it 
hath burst its unfettered way from the prison-house of its earthly 
tabernacle, that it will expatiate for ever in the full buoyancy and 
delight of its then emancipated energies — that, even as from the 
lacerated shell of the inert chrysalis the winged insect rises in all 
the pride of its now-expanded beauty among the fields of light and 
ether which are above it, so the human spirit finds its way through 
the opening made by death upon its corporeal framework among 
the glories of the upper Elysium. It is this immortality which is 
supposed to unriddle all the difficulties that attach to our present 
condition ; which converts the evil that is in the world, into the in- 
strument of a greatly over-passing good ; and affords a scene for 
the imagination to rest upon, where all the anomalies which now 
exercise us shall be rectified, and where, from the larger prospects 
we shall then have of the whole march and destiny of man, the ways 
of God to His creatures shall appear in all the lustre of their full and 
noble vindication. 

5. But as the superiority of the happiness over the misery of the 
world, affords insufficient premises on which to conclude the bene- 

16* 



186 THE CAPACITIES OF THE WORLD FOR 

volence of God, so long as God is conceived of under ike •partial view 
of possessing but this as his atone moral attribute — but when that bene- 
volence is employed as the argument for some ulterior doctrine in 
Natural Theology, it must impart to this latter the same inconclu- 
siveness by which itself is characterised. The proof and the thing 
proved must be alike strong or alike weak. H the excess of enjoy- 
ment over suffering in the life that now is, be a matter of far too 
doubtful calculation, on which to rest a confident inference in 
favour of the divine benevolence ; then, let this benevolence have no 
other prop to lean upon, and in its turn, it is far too doubtful a 
premise, on which to infer a coming immortality. Accordingly, to 
help out the argument, many of our slender and sentimental theists, 
who will admit of no other moral attribute for the divinity, than the 
paternal attribute of kind affection for the creatures who have sprung 
from Him do, in fact, assume the thing to be proved, and reason in a 
circle. The mere balance of the pleasures and pains of the present 
life, is greatly too uncertain, for what may be called an initial foot- 
ing to this argument. But let a future life be assumed, in which all 
the defects and disorders of the present are to be repaired ; and this 
may reconcile the doctrine of the benevolence of God, with the 
otherwise stumbling fact of the great actual wretchedness that is 
now in the world. Out of the observed phenomena of life and an 
assumed immortality together, a tolerable argument may be raised 
for this most pleasing and amiable of all the moral characteristics ; 
but it is obvious that the doctrine of immortality enters into the pre- 
mises of this first argument. But how is the immortality itself 
proved? not by the phenomena of life alone, but by these pheno- 
mena taken in conjunction with the divine benevolence — which 
benevolence, therefore, enters into the premise of the second argu- 
ment. In the one argument, the doctrine of immortality is required 
to prove the benevolence of God. In the other this benevolence is 
required to prove the immortality. Each is used as an assumption 
for the establishment of the other; and this nullifies the reasoning 
for both. Either of these terms — that is, the divine benevolence, or 
a future state of compensation for the evils and inequalities of the 
present one — either of them, if admitted, may be held a very suffi- 
cient, or, at least, likely consideration on which to rest the other. 
But it makes very bad reasoning to vibrate between both — first to 
go forth with the assumption that God is benevolent, and therefore 
it is impossible that a scene so dark and disordered as that imme- 
diately before us can offer to our contemplation the full and final 
developement of all his designs for the human family: and then, 
feeling that this scene does not afford a sufficient basis on which to 
rest the demonstration of this attribute, to strengthen the basis and 
make it broader by the assertion, that it is not from a pail o( His 
ways, but from their complete and comprehensive whole, as made 
up both of time and eternity, that we draw the inference oi' a bene- 



MAKING A VIRTUOUS SPECIES HAPPY. 187 

volent Deity, There is no march of argument. We swing as it 
were between two assumptions. It is like one of those cases in 
geometry, which remains indeterminate for the want of data. And 
the only effectual method of being extricated from such an ambiguity, 
would be the satisfactory assurance either of a benevolence inde- 
pendent of all considerations of immortality, or of an immortality 
independent of all the considerations of the benevolence. 

6. But then it should be recollected that it is the partiality of our 
contemplation, and it alone which incapacitates this whole argu- 
ment. There is a sickly religion of taste which clings exclusively 
to the parental benevolence of God; and will not, cannot brave the 
contemplation of His righteousness. It is this which makes the 
reasoning as feeble, as the sentiment is flimsy. It, in fact, leaves the 
system of natural theology without a ground-work — first to argue 
for immortality on the doubtful assumption of a supreme benevo- 
lence, and then to argue this immortality in proof of the bene- 
volence. The whole fabric, bereft of argument and strength, is 
ready to sink under the weight of unresolved difficulties. The 
mere benevolence of the Deity is not so obviously or decisively the 
lesson of surrounding phenomena, as, of itself to be the foundation 
of a solid inference regarding either the character of God or the 
prospects of man. If we would receive the full lesson — if we would 
learn all which these phenomena, when rightly and attentively re- 
garded, are capable of teaching — if along with the present indica- 
tions of a benevolence, we take the present indications of a righte- 
ousness in God — out of these blended characteristics, we should 
have materials for an argument of firmer texture. It is to the leav- 
ing out of certain data, even though placed within the reach of ob- 
servation, that the infirmity of the argument is owing — whereas, 
did we employ aright all the data in our possession, we might in- 
corporate them together into the solid ground-work of a solid rea- 
soning. It is by our sensitive avoidance of certain parts in this 
contemplation, that we enfeeble the cause. We should find a stable 
basis in existing appearances, did we give them a fair and full inter- 
pretation — as indicating not only the benevolence of God, but, both 
by the course of nature and the laws of man's moral economy, in- 
dicating his love of righteousness and hatred of iniquity. It might 
not resolve, but it would alleviate the mystery of things, could w 7 e 
within the sphere of actual observation, collect notices, not merely 
of a God who rejoiced in the physical happiness of His creatures, 
but of a God who had respect unto their virtue. Now the great 
evidence for this latter characteristic of the Divinity, lies near at 
hand — even among the intimacies of our own felt and familiar na- 
ture. It is not fetched by imagination from a distance, for every 
man has it within himself. The supremacy of conscience is a fact 
or phenomenon of man's moral constitution ; and from this law 
of the heart, we pass, by the direct and legitimate inference, to 



188 THE CAPACITIES OF THE WORLD FOR 

the character of Him who established it there. In a law, we 
read the character of the lawgiver ; and this, whether it be a 
felt or a written law. We learn from the phenomena of con- 
science, that, however God may will the happiness of his creatures, 
His paramount and peremptory demand is for their virtue. He is 
the moral governor of a kingdom, as well as the father of a family; 
and it is a partial view that we take of Him, unless, along with the 
kindness which belongs to Him as a parent, we have respect unto 
that authority which belongs to Him as a sovereign and a judge. 
We have direct intimation of this in our own bosoms, in the con- 
stant assertion which is made there on the side of virtue, in the 
discomfort and remorse which attend its violation. 

7. But though conscience be our original and chief instructor in 
the righteousness of God, the same lesson may be learned in another 
way. It may be gathered from the phenomena of human life — even 
those very phenomena, which so perplex the mind, so long as in 
quest of but one attribute and refusing to admit the evidence or 
even entertain the notion of any other, — it cherishes a partial and 
prejudiced view of the Diety. Those theists, who, in the spirit, have 
attempted to strike a balance between the pleasures and the pains of 
sentient nature, and to ground thereupon the very doubtful inference 
of the divine benevolence — seldom or never think of connecting 
these pleasures and pains with the moral causes, which, whether 
proximately or remotely, go before them. Without adverting to 
these, they rest their conclusion on the affirmed superiority, how- 
ever ill or uncertainly made out, of the physical enjoyments over 
the physical sufferings of life. Now we hold it of capital impor- 
tance in this argument, that, in our own species at least, both these 
enjoyments and these sufferings are mainly resolvable into moral 
causes — insomuch that, in the vast majority of cases, the deviation 
from happiness, can be traced to an anterior deviation from virtue ; 
and that, apart from death and accident and unavoidable disease, 
the wretchedness of humanity is due to a vicious and ill regulated 
morale. When we thus look to the ills of life in their immediate 
origin, though it may not altogether dissipate, it goes far to reduce, 
and even to explain the mystery of their existence. Those evils 
which vex and agitate man, emanate, in the great amount of them. 
from the fountain of his own heart; and come forth, not o( a dis- 
tempered material, but of a distempered moral economy. Mire 
each separate infelicity referred to its distinct source, we should. 
generally speaking, arrive at some moral perversity, whether oi' the 
affections or of the temper — so that but for the one, the other would 
not have been realized. It is true, that, perhaps in even- instance, 
some external cause may be assigned, for any felt annoyance to 
which our nature is liable: but then, it is a cause without, operating 
on a sensibility within. So that in all computations, whether of 

suffering or of enjoyment, the state o\ the subjective or recipient 



MAKING A VIRTUOUS SPECIES HAPPY. l8 f J 

mind must be taken into account, as well as the influences which 
play upon it from the surrounding world ; and what we affirm is, 
that, to a rightly conditioned mind, the misery would be reduced 
and the happiness augmented tenfold. When disappointment ago- 
nizes the heart; or a very slight, perhaps unintentional neglect, 
lights up in many a soul the fierceness of resentment ; or coldness, 
and disdain, and the mutual glances of contempt and hatred, circu- 
late a prodigious mass of infelicity through the world — these are to be 
ascribed, not to the untowardness of outward circumstances, but to 
the untowardness of man's own constitution, and are the fruits of a 
disordered spiritual system. And the same may be said of the po- 
verty which springs from indolence or dissipation ; of the disgrace 
which comes to the back of misconduct ; of the pain or uneasiness 
which festers in every heart that is the prey, whether of licentious 
or malignant passions ; in short, of the general restlessness and un- 
hingement of every spirit, which, thrown adrift from the restraints 
of principle, has no well-spring of satisfaction in itself, but precari- 
ously vacillates, in regard to happiness, with the hazard and the ca- 
sual fluctuation of outward things. There are, it is true, sufferings 
purely physical, which belong to the sentient and not to the moral 
nature — as the maladies of infant disease, and the accidental inflic- 
tions wherewith the material frame is sometimes agonized. Still it 
will be found, that the vast amount of human wretchedness, can be 
directly referred to the waywardness and morbid state of the human 
will — to the character of man, and not to the condition which he 
occupies. 

8. Now what is the legitimate argument for the character of God, 
not from the mere existence of misery, but from the existence of 
misery thus originated? Wretchedness, of itself, were fitted to cast 
an uncertainty, even a suspicion, on the benevolence of God. But 
wretchedness as the result of wickedness, may not indicate the ne- 
gation of this one attribute. It may only indicate the reality or the 
presence of another. Suffering without a cause and without an ob- 
ject, may be the infliction of a malignant being. But suffering in 
alliance with sin, should lead to a very different conclusion. When 
thus related it may cast no impeachment on the benevolence, and 
only bespeak the righteousness of God. It tells us that however 
much he may love the happiness of His creatures, He loves their 
virtue more. So that, instead of extinguishing the evidence of one 
perfection, it may leave this evidence entire, and bring out into open 
manifestation another perfection of the Godhead. 

9. In attempting to form our estimate of the divine character from 
the existing phenomena, the fair proceeding would be, not to found 
it on the actual miseries which abound in the world, peopled with a 
depraved species — but on the fitnesses which abound in the world, 
to make a virtuous species happy. We should try to figure its re- 
sult on human life, were perfect virtue to revisit earth, and take up 



190 THE CAPACITIES OF THE WORLD FOR 

its abode in every family. The question is, are we so constructed 
and so accommodated, that, in the vast majority of cases we, if 
morally right, should be physically happy. What, we should ask, is 
the real tendency of nature's laws — whether to minister enjoyment to 
the good or the evil ? It were a very strong, almost an unequivocal 
testimony to the righteousness of Him, who framed the system of 
things and all its adaptations — if, while it secured a general harmony 
between the virtue of mankind and their happiness or peace, it as 
constantly impeded either the posperity or the heart's ease of the 
profligate and the lawless. Now of this we might be informed 
by an actual survey of human life. We can justly imagine the 
consequences upon human society — were perfect uprightness and 
sympathy and good-will to obtain universally; were every man 
to look to his fellow with a brother's eye ; were a universal courte- 
ousness to reign in our streets and our nouses and our market-places, 
and this to be the spontaneous emanation of a universal cordiality ; 
were each man's interest and reputation as safe in the custody of 
another, as he now strives to make them by a jealous guardianship 
of his own ; were, on the one hand, a prompt and eager benevolence 
on the part of the rich, ever on the watch to meet, nay, to overpass 
all the wants of humanity, and, on the other hand, an honest mode- 
ration and independence on the part of the poor, to be a full defence 
for their superiors against the encroachments of deceit and rapa- 
city; were liberality to walk diffusively abroad among men, and 
love to settle pure and unruffled in the bosom of families ; were that 
moral sunshine to arise in every heart, which purity and innocence 
and kind affection are ever sure to kindle there ; and even when 
some visitation from without was in painful dissonance with the 
harmony within, were a thousand sweets ready to be poured into 
the cup of tribulation from the feeling and the friendship of all the 
good who were around us — on this single transition from vice to 
virtue among men, does there not hinge the alternative between a 
pandsemonium and a paradise? If the moral elements were in 
place and operation among us, should we still continue to fester and 
be unhappy from the want of the physical ? Or, is it not rather 
true, that all nature smiles in beauty, or wantons in bounteousness 
for our enjoyment — were but the disease of our spirits medicated. 
were there but moral soundness in the heart of man ! 

10. And what must be the character of the Being who formed 
such a world, where the moral and the physical economies are bo 
adjusted to each other, that virtue, if universal, would bring ten 
thousand blessings and beatitudes in its train, and turn our earth 
into an elysium — whereas nothing so distempers the human spirit, 
and so multiplies distress in society, as tin* vice and the violence and 
the varieties of moral turpitude wherewith it is invested. Would a 
Cod who loved iniquity and who hated righteousness have created 
such a world? Would he have so attuned the organism of the hu- 



MAKING A VIRTUOUS SPECIES HAPPY. 191 

man spirit, that the consciousness of worth should be felt through 
all its recesses, like the oil of gladness? Or would He have so 
constructed the mechanism of human society, that it should never 
work prosperously for the general good of the species, but by means 
of truth and philanthropy and uprightness ? Would the friend and 
patron of falsehood have let such a world out of his hands 1 Or 
would an unholy being have so fashioned the heart of man — that, 
wayward and irresolute as he is, he never feels so ennobled, as by 
the high resolve that would spurn every base allurement of sensuality 
away from him ; and never breathes so ethereally, as when he main- 
tains that chastity of spirit which would recoil even from one un- 
hallowed imagination ; and never rises to such a sense of grandeur 
and godlike elevation, as when principle hath taken the direction, 
and is vested with full ascendency over the restrained and regulated 
passions 1 What other inference can be drawn from such sequences 
as these, but that our moral architect loves the virtue He thus follows 
up with the delights of a high and generous complacency; and 
execrates the vice He thus follows up with disgust and degradation 1 
If we look but to misery unconnected and alone, we may well doubt 
the benevolence of the Deity. But should it not modify the conclu- 
sion, to have ascertained — that, in proportion as virtue made en- 
trance upon the world, misery would retire from it? There is nothing 
to spoil Him of this perfection, in a misery so originated ; but, leaving 
this perfection untouched, it attaches to Him another, and we infer, 
that He is not merely benevolent, but benevolent and holy. After 
that the moral cause has been discovered for the unhappiness of 
man, we feel Him to be a God of benevolence still ; that He wills 
the happiness of his creatures, but with this reservation, that the only 
sound and sincere happiness He awards to them, is happiness through 
the medium of virtue ; that still He is willing to be the dispenser of 
joy substantial and unfading, but of no such joy apart from moral 
excellence ; that He loves the gratification of His children, but He 
loves their righteousness more ; that dear to Him is the happiness of 
all His offspring, but dearer still their worth, and that therefore He, 
the moral governor, will so conduct the affairs of His empire, as 
that virtue and happiness, or that vice and misery shall be asso- 
ciated. 

11. We have already said, that, by inspecting a mechanism, we 
can infer both the original design of Him who framed it, and the 
derangement it has subsequently undergone — even as by the inspec- 
tion of a watch, we can infer from the place of command which its 
regulator occupies, that it was made for the purpose of moving 
regularly; and that, notwithstanding the state of disrepair and aberra- 
tion into which it may have fallen. And so, from the obvious place of 
rightful supremacy which is occupied by the conscience of man in his 
moral system, we can infer that virtue was the proper and primary 
design of his creation ; and that, notwithstanding the actual preva- 



192 THE CAPACITIES OF THE WORLD FOR 

lence of obviously inferior principles, over the habits and history of his 
life. Connect this with the grand and general adaptation of External 
Nature for which we have now been contending — even the capacity 
of that world in which we are placed for making a virtuous species 
happy ; and it were surely far juster, in arguing for the divine 
character, that we founded our interpretation on the happiness 
which man's original constitution is fitted to secure for him, than on 
the misery which he suffers by that constitution having been in some 
way perverted. It is from the native and proper tendency of aught 
which is made, that we conclude as to the mind and disposition of 
the maker; and not from the actual effect, when that tendency has 
been rendered abortive, by the extrinsic operation of some disturbing 
force on an else goodly and well-going mechanism. The original 
design of the Creator may be read in the natural, the universal ten- 
dency of things ; and surely, it speaks strongly both for His benevo- 
lence and His righteousness that nothing is so fitted to ensure the 
general happiness of society as the general virtue of them who com- 
pose it. And if, instead of this, we behold a world, ill at ease, with 
its many heart-burnings and many disquietudes — the fair conclusion 
is, that the beneficial tendencies which have been established therein, 
and which are therefore due to the benevolence of God, have all 
been thwarted by the moral perversity of man. The compound 
lesson to be gathered from such a contemplation is, that God is the 
friend of human happiness but the enemy of human vice — seeing, 
He hath set up an economy in which the former would have grown 
up and prospered universally, had not the latter stepped in and over- 
borne it. 

12. We are now on a ground work of a more firm texture, for 
an argument in behalf of man's immortality. But it is only by a 
more comprehensive view both of the character of God, and the 
actual state of the world — that we obtain as much evidence both 
for His benevolence and His righteousness, as might furnish logical 
premises for the logical inference of a future state. 

13. We have already stated that the miseries of life, in their great 
and general amount, are resolvable into moral causes; and did 
each man suffer here, accurately in proportion to his own sins, there 
might be less reason for the anticipation of another state hereafter. 
But this proportion is, in no individual instance perhaps, ever realized 
on this side of death. The miseries of the good are still due to a 
moral perversity — though but to the moral perversity of others, not 
of his own. He suffers from the injustice and calumny and violence 
and evil tempers of those who are around him. On the large and 
open theatre of the world, the cause of oppression is often the trium- 
phant, one; and, in the bosom of families, the most meek and inno- 
cent, of the household, are frequently the victims for life, of B harsh 
and injurious though unseen tyranny. It is this inequality ©f fortune, 
or rather of enjoyment, between the good and the evil, which forms 



MAKING A VIRTUOUS SPECIES HAPPY. 193 

the most popular, and enters as a constituent part at least, into the 
most powerful argument, which nature furnishes, for the immortality 
of the soul. We cannot imagine of a God of righteousness, that 
He will leave any question of justice unsettled; and there is nothing 
which more powerfully suggests to the human conscience the appre- 
hension of a life to come, than that in this life, there should be so 
many unsettled questions of justice — first between man and man, 
secondly between man and his Maker. 

14. The strength of the former consideration lies in the multipli- 
city, and often the fearful aggravation, of the unredressed wrongs, 
inflicted every day by man upon his fellows. The history of human 
society teems with these ; and the unappeased cry, whether for ven- 
geance or reparation, rises to heaven because of them. We might 
here expatiate on the monstrous, the wholesale atrocities, perpetrated 
on the defenceless by the strong ; and which custom has almost 
legalized — having stood their ground against the indignation of the 
upright and the good for many ages. Perhaps for the most gigantic 
example of this, in the dark annals of our guilty world, we should 
turn our eyes upon injured Africa — that devoted region, where the 
lust of gain has made the fiercest and fellest exhibition of its hardi- 
hood; and whose weeping families are broken up in thousands 
every year, that the families of Europe might the more delicately 
and luxuriously regale themselves. It is a picturesque, and seems a 
powerful argument for some future day of retribution, when we look, 
on the one hand, to the prosperity of the lordly oppressor, wrung 
from the sufferings of a captive and subjugated people; and look, 
on the other, to the tears and the untold agony of the hundreds be- 
neath him, whose lives of dreariness and hard labour are tenfold 
embittered, by the imagery of that dear and distant land, from 
which they have been irrecoverably torn. But, even within the 
confines of civilized society, there do exist materials for our argu- 
ment. There are cruelties and wrongs innumerable, in the conduct 
of business ; there are even cruelties and wrongs, in the bosom of 
families. There are the triumphs of injustice ; the success of deep- 
laid and malignant policy on the one side, on the other the ruin and 
the overthrow of unprotected weakness. Apart from the violence of 
the midnight assault, or the violence of the highway — there is, even 
under the forms of law, and amid the blandness of social courtesies, 
a moral violence that carries as grievous and substantial iniquity in 
its train ; by which friendless and confiding simplicity may at once 
be bereft of its rights, and the artful oppressor be enriched by the 
spoliation. Have we never seen the bankrupt rise again with un- 
diminished splendour, from amid the desolation and despair of the 
families that have been ruined by him? Or, more secret though 
not less severe, have we not seen the inmates of a wretched home 
doomed to a hopeless and unhappy existence, under the sullen brow 
of the tyrant who lorded over them ? There are sufferings from 

17 



194 THE CAPACITIES OF THE WORLD FOR 

which there is no redress or rectification upon earth ; inequalities 
between man and man, of which there is no adjustment here — but 
because of that very reason, there is the utmost desire, and we 
might add expectancy of our nature, that there shall be an adjust- 
ment hereafter. In the unsated appetency of our hearts for justice, 
there is all the force of an appeal to the Being who planted the ap- 
petite within us ; and we feel that if Death is to make sudden 
disruption, in the midst of all these unfinished questions, and so to 
leave them eternally — we feel a violence done both to our own 
moral constitution, and to the high jurisprudence of Him who framed 
us. 

15. But there are furthermore, in this life, unfinished questions 
between man and his Maker. The same conscience which asserts 
its own supremacy within the breast, suggests the God and the 
Moral Governor who placed it there. It is thus that man not only 
takes cognisance of his own delinquencies ; but he connects them 
with the thought of a lawgiver to whom he is accountable. He 
passes by one step, and with rapid inference, from the feeling of a 
judge who is within, to the fear of a Judge who sits in high au- 
thority over him. With the sense of a reigning principle in his own 
constitution, there stands associated the sense of a reigning power in 
the universe — the one challenging the prerogatives of a moral law, 
the other avenging the violation of them. Even the hardiest in 
guilt are not insensible to the force of this sentiment. They feel it, 
as did Catiline and the worst of Roman emperors, in the horrors of 
remorse. There is, in spite of themselves, the impression of an 
avenging God — not the less founded upon reasoning, that it is the 
reasoning of but one truth or rather of but one transition, from a 
thing intimately known to a thing immediately concluded, from the 
reckoning of a felt and a present conscience within, to the more 
awful reckoning of a God who is the author of conscience and who 
knoweth all things. Now, it is thus that men are led irresistibly to 
the anticipation of a future state — not by their hopes, we think, but 
by their fears ; not by a sense of unfulfilled promises, but by the 
sense and the terror of unfulfilled penalties ; by their sense of a judg- 
ment not yet executed, of a wrath not yet discharged upon them. 
Hence the impression of a futurity upon all spirits, whither arc car- 
ried forward the issues of a jurisprudence, which bears no marks 
but the contrary of a full and final consummation on this side of 
death. The prosperity of many wicked who spend their days in 
resolute and contemptuous irreligion : the practical defiance of their 
lives to the bidding of conscience, and yet a voice of remonstrance 
and of warning from this said conscience which they are unable 
wholly to quell; the many emphatic denunciations, not Uttered in 
audible thunder from above, but uttered in secret and impressive 
whispers from within — these all point to accounts between God and 
His creatures that are yet unfinished. If there be no future state, 



MAKING A VIRTUOUS SPECIES HAPPY. 195 

the great moral question between heaven and earth, broken off at 
the middle, is frittered into a degrading mockery. There is vio- 
lence done to the continuity of things. The moral constitution of 
man is stript of its significancy and the Author of that constitution 
is stript of His wisdom and authority and honour. That consistent 
march which we behold in all the cycles, and progressive move- 
ments of the natural economy, is, in the moral economy, brought to 
sudden arrest and disruption — if death annihilate the man, instead 
of only transforming him. And it is only the doctrine of his im- 
mortality by which all can be adjusted and harmonized.* 

16. And there is one especial proof for the immortality of the 
soul, founded on adaptation ; and therefore so identical in principle 
with the subject and main argument of our essay — that we feel its 
statement to be our best and most appropriate termination of this 
especial inquiry. The argument is this. For every desire or every 
faculty, whether in man or in the inferior animals, there seems a 
counterpart object in external nature. Let it be either an appetite 
or a power ; and let it reside either in the sentient or in the intellec- 
tual or in the moral economy — still there exists a something without 
that is altogether suited to it, and which seems to be expressly 
provided for its gratification. There is light for the eye ; there is 
air for the lungs ; there is food for the ever recurring appetite of hun- 
ger ; there is water for the appetite of thirst ; there is society for the 
love, whether of fame or of fellowship ; there is a boundless field in 
all the objects of all the sciences for the exercise of curiosity — in a 
word, there seems not one affection in the living creature, which is 
not met by a counterpart and a congenial object in the surrounding 
creation. It is this, in fact, which forms an important class of those 
adaptations, on which the argument for a Deity is founded. The 
adaptation of the parts to each other within the organic structure, is 
distinct from the adaptation of the whole to the things of circumam- 
bient nature ; and is w r ell unfolded in a separate chapter by Paley, 
on the relation of inanimate bodies to animated nature. But there 
is another chapter on prospective contrivances, in which he unfolds 
to us other adaptations, that approximate still more nearly to our 
argument. They consist of embryo arrangements or parts, not of 
immediate use, but to be of use eventually — preparations going on 
in the animal economy, whereof the full benefit is not to be realized, till 
some future and often considerably distant developement shall have 
taken place ; such as the teeth buried in their sockets, that would be 
inconvenient during the first months of infancy, but come forth when 
it is sufficiently advanced for another and a new sort of nourish- 
ment ; such as the manifold preparations, anterior to the birth, that 

* It is well said by Mr. Davison, in his profound and original work on Prophecy 
— that "Conscience and the present constitution of things are not corresponding 
terms. The one is not the object of perception to the other. It is conscience and 
the issue of things which go together." 



196 THE CAPACITIES OF THE WORLD TOR 

are of no use to the foetus, but are afterwards to be of indispensable 
use in a larger and freer state of existence; such as the instructive 
tendencies to action that appear before even the instruments of ac- 
tion are provided, as in a calf of a day old to butt with its head be- 
fore it has been furnished with horns. Nature abounds, not merely 
in present expedients for an- immediate use, but in providential ex- 
pedients for a future one ; and, as far as we can observe, we have 
no reason to believe, that, either in the first or second sort of expe- 
dients, there has ever aught been noticed, which either bears on no 
object now, or lands in no result afterwards. We may perceive in 
this, the glimpse of an argument for the soul's immortality. We 
may enter into the analogy, as stated by Dr. Ferguson, when he 
says — " whoever considers the anatomy of the foetus, will find, in 
the strength of bones and muscles, in the organs of respiration and 
digestion, sufficient indications of a design to remove his being into 
a different state. The observant and the intelligent may perhaps 
find in the mind of man parallel signs of his future destination.* 

17. Now what inference shall we draw from this remarkable law 
in nature, that there is nothing waste and nothing meaningless in the 
feelings and faculties wherewith living creatures are endowed 1 
For each desire there is a counterpart object, for each faculty there is 
room and opportunity of exercise- — either in the present, or in the 
coming futurity. Now, but for the doctrine of immortality, man 
would be an exception to this law. He would stand forth as an 
anomaly in nature — with aspirations in his heart for which the 
universe had no antitype to offer, with capacities of understanding 

* Dr. Ferguson's reasoning upon this subject is worthy of being extracted more 
largely than we have room for in the text — "If the human fectus," he observes, 
" were qualified to reason of his prospects in the womb of his parent, as he may 
afterwards do in his range on this terrestrial globe, he might no doubt apprehend 
in the breach of his umbilical chord, and in his separation from the womb a total 
extinction of life, for how could he conceive it to continue after his only supply of 
nourishment from the vital stock of his parent had ceased ? He might indeed ob- 
serve many parts of his organization and frame which should seem to have no re- 
lation to his state in the womb. For what purpose, he might say, this duct which 
leads from the mouth to the intestines ? Why these bones that each apart become 
hard and stiff, while they are separated from one another by so many flexures or 
joints ? Why these joints in particular made to move upon hinges, and these 
germs of teeth, which are pushing to be felt above the surface of the gums } 
Why the stomach through which nothing is made to pass ? And these spongy 
lungs, so well fitted to drink up the fluids, but into which the blood that passes 
every where else is scarcely permitted to enter ? 

"To these queries, which the foetus was neither qualified to make nor to answer, 
we are now well apprized the proper answer would be — the life which you now 
enjoy is but temporary ; and those particulars which now seem to you so pre- 
posterous, are a provision which nature has made for a future course 01 lift which 
you have to run, and in which their use and propriety will appear sufficiently 
evident. 

"Such are the prognostics of a future destination that mighl he c Wlected from 
the state of the foMus; and similiar prognostics of a destination still future might 
be collected from present appearances in the life and condition of man." 



MAKING A VIRTUOUS SPECIES HAPPY. 197 

and thought, that never were to be followed, by objects of corre- 
sponding greatness, through the whole history of his being. It were 
a violence to the harmony of things, whereof no other example can 
be given ; and, in as far as an argument can be founded on this har- 
mony for the wisdom of Him who made all things — it were a re- 
flection on one of the conceived, if not one of the ascertained 
attributes of the Godhead. To feel the force of this argument, we 
have only to look to the obvious adaptation of his powers to a 
larger and more enduring theatre — to the dormant faculties which 
are in him for the mastery and acquisition of all the sciences, and 
yet the partial ignorance of all, and the profound or total ignorance 
of many, in which he spends the short-lived years of his present 
existence — to the boundless, but here, the unopened capabilities 
which lie up in him, for the comprehension of truths that never once 
draw his attention on this side of death, for the contemplative enjoy- 
ment both of moral and intellectual beauties which have never here 
revealed themselves to his gaze. The whole labour of this mortal 
life would not suffice, for traversing in full extent any one of the 
sciences ; and yet, there may lie undeveloped in his bosom, a taste 
and talent for them all— none of which he can even singly overtake; 
for each science, though definite in its commencement, has its out- 
goings in the infinite and the eternal. There is in man, a restless- 
ness of ambition ; an interminable longing after nobler and higher 
things, which nought but immortality and the greatness of immor- 
tality can satiate ; a dissatisfaction with the present, which never is 
appeased by all that the world has to offer ; an impatience and dis- 
taste with the felt littleness of all that he finds, and an unsated appe- 
tency for something larger and better, which he fancies in the per- 
spective before him — to all which there is nothing like among any 
of the inferior animals, with whom, there is a certain squareness of 
adjustment, if we may so term it, between each desire and its cor- 
respondent gratification. The one is evenly met by the other ; and 
there is a fulness and definiteness of enjoyment, up to the capacity 
of enjoyment. Not so with man, who both from the vastness of his 
propensities and the vastness of his powers, feels himself straitened 
and beset in a field too narrow for him. He alone labours under 
the discomfort of an incongruity between his circumstances and his 
powers ; and, unless there be new circumstances awaiting him in 
a more advanced state of being, he, the noblest of Nature's products 
here below, would turn out to be the greatest of her failures. 



17* 



198 



PART II 



ON THE ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE INTELLEC- 
TUAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 



CHAPTER I. 

Chief Instances of this Adaptation. 

1. (1.) The law of most extensive influence over the phenomena 
and processes of the mind, is the law of association, or, as denomi- 
nated by Dr. Thomas Brown, the law of suggestion. If two objects 
have been seen in conjunction, or in immediate succession, at any 
one time — then the sight or thought of one of them afterwards, is 
apt to suggest the thought of the other also ; and the same is true of 
the objects of all the senses. The same smells or sounds or tastes 
which have occurred formerly, when they occur again, will often 
recall the objects from which they then proceeded, the occasions 
or other objects with which they w r ere then associated. When one 
meets with a fragrance of a particular sort, it may often instantly 
suggest a fragrance of the same kind experienced months or years 
ago ; the rose-bush from which it came ; the garden where it grew; 
the friend w T ith whom we then walked ; his features, his conversa- 
tion, his relatives, his history. When two ideas have been once in 
juxta-position, they are apt to present themselves in juxta-position 
over again — an aptitude which ever increases the oftener that the 
conjunction has taken place, till, as if by an invincible necessity, the 
antecedent thought is sure to bring its usual consequent along with 
it ; and, not only single sequences, but lengthened trains or progres- 
sions of thought, may in this manner be explained. 

2. And such are the great speed and facility of these successions, 
that many of the intermediate terms, though all of them undoubtedly 
present to the mind, flit so quickly and evanescent ly, as to pass un- 
noticed. This will the more certainly happen, if the antecedents are 
of no further use than to Introduce the consequents; in which case, 
the consequents remain as the sole objects of attention, and the an- 



THE INTELLECTUAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 199 

tecedents are forgotten. In the art of reading, the ultimate object 
is to obtain possession of the author's sentiments or meaning ; and 
all memory of the words, still more of the component letters, though 
each of them must have been present to the mind, pass irrecovera- 
bly away from it. In like manner, the anterior steps of many a 
mental process may actually be described, yet without conscious- 
ness — the attention resting, not on the fugitive means, but on the 
important end in which they terminate. It is thus that we seem to 
judge, on the instant, of distances, as if under a guidance that was 
immediate and instinctive, and not by the result of a derivative pro- 
cess — because insensible to the rapid train of inference which led to 
it. The mind is too much occupied with the information itself, for 
looking back on the light and shadowy footsteps of the messenger 
who brought it, which it would find difficult if not impossible to 
trace — and besides, having no practical call upon it for making 
such a retrospect. It is thus that, when looking intensely on some 
beautiful object in Nature, we are so much occupied with the re- 
sulting enjoyment as to overlook the intermediate train of unbidden 
associations, which connects the sight of that which is before us, 
with the resulting and exquisite pleasure, that we feel in the act of 
beholding it. The principle has been much resorted to, in expound- 
ing that process by which the education of the senses is carried for- 
ward ; and, more especially, the way in which the intimations of 
sight and touch are made to correct and to modify each other. It 
has also been employed with good effect, in the attempt to establish 
a philosophy of taste. But these rapid and fugitive associations, 
while they form a real, form also an unseen process ; and we are 
not therefore to wonder, if along with many solid explanations, 
they should have been so applied in the investigation of mental phe- 
nomena, as occasionally to have given rise to subtle and fantastic 
theories. 

3. But our proper business at present is with results, rather than 
with processes ; and instead of entering on the more recondite in- 
quiries of the science, however interesting and however beautiful or 
even satisfactory the conclusions may be to which they lead — it is 
our task to point out those palpable benefits and subserviences of our 
intellectual constitution, which demonstrate, without obscurity, the 
benevolent designs of Him who framed us. There are some of our 
mental philosophers, indeed, who have theorised and simplified be- 
yond the evidence of those facts which lie before us ; and our argu- 
ment should be kept clear, for in reality it does not partake, in the 
uncertainty or error of their speculations. The law of association, 
for example, has been of late reasoned upon, as if it were the sole 
parent and predecessor of all the mental phenomena. Yet it does 
not explain, however largely it may influence, the phenomena of 
memory. When by means of one idea, anyiiow awakened in the 
mind, the whole of some past transaction or scene is brought to re- 



200 THE INTELLECTUAL 

collection, it is association which recalls to our thoughts this portion 
of our former history. But association cannot explain our recogni- 
tion of its actual and historical truth — or what it is, which, beside 
an act of conception, makes it also an act of remembrance. By 
means of this law we may understand how it is, that certain ideas, 
suggested by certain others which came before it, are now present 
to the mind. But superadded to the mere presence of these ideas, 
there is such a perception of the reality of their archetypes, as dis- 
tinguishes a case of remembrance from a case of imagination — in- 
somuch that over and above the conception of certain objects, there 
is also a conviction of their substantive being at the time which we 
connect with the thought of them ; and this is what the law of asso- 
ciation cannot by itself account for. It cannot account for our re- 
liance upon memory — not as a conjuror of visions into the chamber 
of imagery, but as an informer of stable and objective truths which 
had place and fulfilment in the actual world of experience. 

4. And the same is true of our believing anticipations of the fu- 
ture, which we have now affirmed to be true of our believing retro- 
spects of the past. The confidence wherewith we count on the 
same sequences in future, that we have observed in the course of 
our past experience, has been rested by some philosophers, into 
the principle of association alone. Now when we have seen a cer- 
tain antecedent followed up by a certain consequent, the law of as- 
sociation does of itself afford a sufficient reason, why the idea of 
that antecedent should be followed up by the idea of its consequent; 
but it contains within it no reason, why, on the actual occurrence 
again of the antecedent, we should believe that the consequent will 
occur also. That the thought of the antecedent should suggest the 
thought of the consequent, is one mental phenomenon. That the 
knowledge of the antecedent having anew taken place, should in- 
duce the certainty, that the consequent must have taken place also, 
is another mental phenomenon. We cannot confound these two, 
without being involved in the idealism of Hume or Berkeley. 
Were the mere thought of the consequent all that was to be ac- 
counted for, we need not go farther than to the law of association. 
But when to the existence of this thought, there is superadded a be- 
lief in the reality of its archetype, a distinct mental phenomenon 
comes into view, which the law of association does not explain: and 
which, for aught that the analysts of the mind have yet been able to 
trace or to discover, is an ultimate principle of the human under- 
standing. This belief, then, is one thing. But ere we can make 
out an adaptation, we must be able to allege at least two things. 
And they are ready to our hands — for, in addition to the belief in 
the subjective mind, there is a correspondent and counterpart reality 
in objective nature. If we have formerly observed that a given 
antecedent is followed by a certain consequent, then, not only does 
the idea of the antecedent BUggest the idea of the consequent; but 



CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 201 

there is a belief, that, on the actual occurrence of the same antece- 
dent, the same consequent will follow over again. And the conse- 
quent does follow; or, in other words, this our instinctive faith meets 
with its unexcepted fulfilment, in the actual course and constancy 
of nature. The law of association does of itself, and without going 
further, secure this general convenience — that the courses of the 
mind are thereby conformed, or are made to quadrate and harmo- 
nise with the courses of the outer world. It is the best possible 
construction for the best and most useful guidance of the mind, as 
in the exercise of memory for example, that thought should be made 
to follow thought, according to the order in which the objects and 
events of nature are related to each other. But a belief in the cer- 
tainty and uniformity of this order, with the counterpart verification 
of this belief in the actual history of things, is that which we now 
are especially regarding. It forms our first instance, perhaps the 
most striking and marvellous of all, of the adaptation of external 
nature to the intellectual constitution of man. 

5. This disposition to count on the uniformity of Nature, or even 
to anticipate the same consequents from the same antecedents — is 
not the fruit of experience, but anterior to it ; or at least anterior to 
the very earliest of those of her lessons, which can be traced back- 
ward in the history of an infant mind. Indeed it has been well 
observed by Dr. Thomas Brown, that the future constancy of Na- 
ture, is a lesson, which no observation of its past constancy, or no 
experience could have taught us. Because we have observed A a 
thousand times to be followed in immediate succession by B, there 
is no greater logical connexion between this proposition and the 
proposition that A will always be followed by B ; than there is be- 
tween the propositions that we have seen A followed once by B, and 
therefore A will always be followed by B. At whatever stage of 
the experience, the inference may be made, whether longer or 
shorter, whether oftener or seldomer repeated — the conversion of 
the past into the future seems to require a distinct and independent 
principle of belief; and it is a principle which, to all appearance, is 
as vigorous in childhood, as in the full maturity of the human un- 
derstanding. The child who strikes the table with a spoon for the 
first time, and is regaled by the noise, will strike again, with as 
confident an expectation of the same result, as if the succession had 
been familiar to it for years. There is the expectation before the 
experience of Nature's constancy ; and still the topic of our wonder 
and gratitude is, that this instinctive and universal faith in the heart, 
should be responded to by objective nature, in one wide and uni- 
versal fulfilment. 

6. The proper office of experience, in this matter, is very gene- 
rally misapprehended ; and this has mystified the real principle and 
philosophy of the subject. Her office is not to tell, or to re-assure 
us of the constancy of Nature ; but to tell, what the^terms of her 



202 THE INTELLECTUAL 

unalterable progressions actually are. The human mind from its 
first outset, and in virtue of a constitutional bias coeval with the 
earliest dawn of the understanding, is prepared, and that before ex- 
perience has begun her lessons, to count on the constancy of nature's 
sequences. But at that time, it is profoundly ignorant of the 
sequences in themselves. It is the proper business of experience to 
give this information ; but it may require many lessons before that 
her disciples be made to understand, what be the distinct terms even 
but of one sequence. Nature presents us with her phenomena in 
complex assemblages ; and it is often difficult, in the w T ork of disen- 
tangling her trains from each other, to single out the proper and 
causal antecedent with its resulting consequent, from among the 
crowd of accessary or accidental circumstances by which they are 
surrounded. There is never any uncertainty, as to the invariable- 
ness of nature's successions. The only uncertainty is as to the 
steps of each succession ; and the distinct achievement of expe- 
rience, is to ascertain these steps. And many mistakes are com- 
mitted in this course of education, from our disposition to confound 
the similarities with the samenesses of Nature. We never misgive 
in our general confidence, that the same antecedent will be followed 
by the same consequent ; but we often mistake the semblance for 
the reality, and are as often disappointed in the expectations that we 
form. This is the real account of that growing confidence, where- 
with we anticipate the same results in the same apparent circum- 
stances, the oftener that that result has in these circumstances been 
observed by us — as of a high-water abo^rt twice every day, or of a 
sun-rise every morning. It is not that we need to be more assured 
than we are already of the constancy of Nature, in the sense that 
every result must always be the sure effect of its strict and causal 
antecedent. But we need to be assured of the real presence of this 
antecedent, in that mass of contemporaneous things under which the 
result has taken place hitherto ; and of this we are more and more 
satisfied, with every new occurrence of the same event in the same 
apparent circumstances. This too is our real object in the repeti- 
tion of experiments. Not that we suspect that Nature will ever 
vacillate from her constancy — for if by one decisive experiment we 
should fix the real terms of any succession, this experiment were to 
us as good as a thousand. But each succession in nature is so liable 
to be obscured and complicated by other influences, that we must 
be quite sure, ere we can proclaim our discovery of some new 
sequence, that we have properly disentangled her separate trains 
from each other. For this purpose, we have often to question Na- 
ture in many different ways; we have to combine and apply her 
elements variously ; we have sometimes to detach one ingredient, 
or to add another, or to alter the proportions o( a third — and all in 
order, not to ascertain the invariableness of Nature, for of this we 
have had instinctive certainty from the beginning; hut. in order to 
ascertain what the actual footsteps {){' her progressions are. si> as 



CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 203 

to connect each effect in the history of Nature's changes with its 
strict and proper cause. Meanwhile, amid all the suspense and the 
frequent disappointments which attend this search into the processes 
of nature, our confidence in the rigid and inviolable uniformity of 
these processes remains unshaken — a confidence not learned from 
experience, but amply confirmed and accorded to by experience. 
For this instinctive expectation is never once refuted, in the whole 
course of our subsequent researches. Nature though stretched on 
a rack, or put to the torture by the inquisitions of science, never 
falters from her immutability ; but persists, unseduced and un- 
wearied, in the same response to the same question ; or gives forth, 
by a spark, or an explosion, or an effervescence, or some other defi- 
nite phenomenon, the same result to the same circumstances or com- 
bination of data. The anticipations of infancy meet with their 
glorious verification, in all the findings of manhood; and a truth 
which would seem to require Omniscience for its grasp, as coexten- 
sive with all Nature and all History, is deposited by the hand of 
God, in the little cell of a nursling's cogitations. 

7. Yet the immutability of Nature has ministered to the atheism 
of some spirits, as impressing on the universe a character of blind 
necessity, instead of that spontaneity, which might mark the inter- 
vention of a willing and a living God. To refute this notion of an 
unintelligent fate, as being the alone presiding Divinity, the common 
appeal is to the infinity and exquisite skill of nature's adaptations. 
But to attack this infidelity in its fortress, and dislodge it thence, the 
more appropriate argument would be the very, the individual adap- 
tation on which we have now insisted — the immutability of Nature, 
in conjunction with the universal sense and expectation, even from 
earliest childhood, that all men have of it ; being itself one of the 
most marvellous and strikingly beneficial of these adaptations. 
When viewed aright, it leads to a wiser and sounder conclusion 
than that of the fatalists. In the instinctive, the universal faith of 
Nature's constancy, we behold a promise. In the actual constancy 
of Nature, we behold its fulfilment. When the two are viewed in 
connexion, then, to be told that Nature never recedes from her con- 
stancy, is to be told that the God of Nature never recedes from his 
faithfulness. If not by a whisper from His voice, at least by the 
impress of His hand, He hath deposited a silent expectation in every 
heart; and He makes all Nature and all History conspire to realize 
it. He hath not only enabled man to retain in his memory a faithful 
transcript of the past ; but by means of this constitutional tendency, 
this instinct of the understanding as it has been termed, to look with 
prophetic eye upon the future. It is the link by which we connect 
experience with anticipation — a power or exercise of the mind 
coeval with the first dawniogs of consciousness or observation, be- 
cause obviously that to which we owe the confidence so early ac- 



204 THE INTELLECTUAL 

quired and so firmly established, in the information of our senses.* 
This disposition to presume on the constancy of nature, commences 
with the faculty of thought, and keeps by it through life, and ena- 
bles the mind to convert its stores of memory into the treasures of 
science and wisdom ; and so to elicit from the recollections of the 
past, both the doctrines of a general philosophy, and the lessons of 
daily and familiar conduct — and that, by means of prognostics, not 
one of which can fail, for, in respect of her steadfast uniformity, 
Nature never disappoints, or, which is equivalent to this, the Author 
of Nature never deceives us. The generality of Nature's laws is 
indispensable, both to the formation of any system of truth for the 

* It is from our tactual sensations that we obtain our first original perceptions of 
distance and magnitude ; and it is only because of the invariable connexion which 
subsists between the same tactual and the same visual sensations, that by means of 
the latter we obtain secondary or acquired perceptions of distance and magnitude. 
It is obvious that without a faith in the uniformity of nature, this rudimental educa- 
tion could not have taken effect ; and from the confidence wherewith we proceed 
in very early childhood on the intimations of the eye, we may infer how strongly 
this principle must have been at work throughout the anterior stage of our still 
earlier infancy. The lucid and satisfactory demonstration upon this subject in that 
delightful little work, the Theory of Vision, by Bishop Berkeley, has not been 
superseded, because it has not been improved upon, by the lucubrationsof any 
subsequent author. The theology which he would found on the beautiful process 
which he has unfolded so well, is somewhat tinged with the mysticism of that doc- 
trine which represents our seeing all things in God. Certain it is, however, that 
the process could not have been advanced or consummated, without an aboriginal 
faith on the part of the infant mind in the uniformity of nature's sequences, a dis- 
position to expect the same consequents from the same antecedents — an inference 
which is at length made, and that in very early childhood, with such rapidity as 
well as confidence, that it leads all men to confound their acquired with their 
original perceptions : and it requires a subtle analysis to disentangle the two from 
each other. Without partaking in the metaphysics of Berkeley, we fully concur 
in the strength and certainty of those theistical conclusions which are expressed by 
him in the following sentences — " Something there is of divine and admirable in 
this language addressed to our eyes, that may well awaken the mind, and deserve 
its utmost attention ; it is learned with so little pains, it expresses the difference 
of things so clearly and aptly, it instructs with such facility and despatch, by one 
glance of the eye conveying a greater variety of advices, and a more distinct know- 
ledge of things, than could be got by a discourse of several hours ; and, while it 
informs, it amuses and entertains the mind with such singular pleasure and delight ; 
it is of such excellent use in giving a stability and permanency to human discourse, 
in recording sounds and bestowing life on dead lang'uages, enabling us to converge 
with men of remote ages and countries; and it answers so apposite to the uses and 
necessaries of mankind, informing us more distinctly of those objects, whose near- 
ness or magnitude qualify them to be of greatest detriment or benefit to our bo- 
dies, and less exactly in proportion as their littleness or distance make them of Less 
concern to us. But these tilings are not strange, they are familiar, and that makes 
them to be overlooked. Things which rarely happen strike ; whereas frequency 
lessens the admiration of things, though in themselves ever so admirable. Hence 
a common man who is not used (o think and make reflections, would probably be 
more convinced of the being of a God by one single sentence heard once in his 
life from the sky, than by all the experience he has had of this visual language, 
contrived with such exquisite skill, so constantly addressed to his eyes, and so 
plainly declaring the neatness, wisdom, and pros idence of Him with whom we 
have to do." Minute Philosopher. Dialogue IV. Art. XV. 



CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 205 

understanding, and to the guidance of our actions. But ere we can 
make such use of it, the sense and the confident expectation of this 
generality must be previously in our minds ; and the concurrence, 
the contingent harmony of these two elements ; the exquisite adap- 
tation of the objective to the subjective, with the manifest utilities to 
which it is subservient ; the palpable and perfect meetness which sub- 
sists, between this intellectual propensity in man, and all the processes 
of the outward universe — while they afford incontestable evidence to 
the existence and unity of that design, which must have adjusted 
the mental and the material formations to each other, speak most 
decisivelv in our estimation both for the truth and the wisdom of 
God. 

8. We have long felt this close and unexpected, while at the same 
time, contingent harmony, between the actual constancy of Na- 
ture and man's faith in that constancy, to be an effectual preserva- 
tive against that scepticism, which would represent the whole sys- 
tem of our thoughts and perceptions to be founded on an illusion. 
Certain it is, that beside an indefinite number of truths received by 
the understanding as the conclusions of a proof more or less length- 
ened, there are truths recognised without proof by an instant act of 
intuition — not the results of a reasoning process, but themselves the 
first principles of all reasoning. At every step in the train of argu- 
mentation, we affirm one thing to be true, because of its logical 
connexion with another thing known to be true; but as this process 
of derivation is not eternal, it is obvious, that, at the commence- 
ment of at least some of these trains, there must be truths, which, 
instead of borrowing their evidence from others, announce them- 
selves immediately to the mind in an original and independent evi- 
dence of their own. Now they are these primary convictions of 
the understanding, these cases of a belief without reason, which 
minister to the philosophical infidelity of those, who, professing to 
have no dependence on an instinctive faith, do, in fact, alike discard 
all truth, whether demonstrated or undemonstrated — seeing that 
underived or unreasoned truth must necessarily form the basis, as 
well as the continuous cement of all reasoning. They challenge 
us to account for these native and original convictions of the mind ; 
and affirm that they may be as much due to an arbitrary organi- 
zation of the percipient faculty, as to the objective trueness of the 
things which are perceived. And we cannot dispute the possibility 
of this. We can neither establish by reasoning those truths, whose 
situation is, not any where in the stream, but at the fountain of ra- 
tiocination ; nor can we deny that beings might have been so differ- 
ently constituted, as that, with reverse intuitions to our own, they 
might have recognised as truths what we instantly recoil from as 
falsehoods, or felt to be absurdities our first and foremost principles of 
truth. And when this suspicion is once admitted, so as to shake our 
confidence in the judgments of the intellect, it were but consistent 

18 



206 THE INTELLECTUAL 

that it should be extended to the departments of both morality and 
taste. Our impressions of what is virtuous or of what is fair, may 
be regarded as alike accidental and arbitrary with our impressions 
of what is true — being referable to the structure of the mind, and 
not to any objective reality in the things which are contemplated. 
It is thus that the absolutely true, or good, or beautiful, may be con- 
ceived of, as having no stable or substantive being in nature ; and 
the mind, adrift from all fixed principle, may thus lose itself in uni- 
versal pyrrhonism. 

9. Nature is fortunately too strong for this speculation ; but still 
there is a comfort in being enabled to vindicate the confidence 
which she has inspired — as in those cases, where some original 
principle of hers admits of being clearly and decisively tested. And 
it is so of our faith in the constancy of nature, met and responded 
to, throughout all her dominions by nature's actual constancy — the 
one being the expectation, the other its rigid and invariable fulfil- 
ment. This perhaps is the most palpable instance which can be 
quoted, of a belief anterior to experience, yet of which experience 
affords a wide and unexcepted verification. It proves at least of 
one of our implanted instincts, that it is unerring : and that, over 
against a subjective tendency in the mind, there is a great objective 
reality in circumambient nature to which it corresponds. This may 
well convince us, that we live, not in a w T orld of imaginations — but 
in a world of realities. It is a noble example of the harmony which 
obtains, between the original make and constitution of the human 
spirit upon the one hand, and the constitution of external things 
upon the other; and nobly accredits the faithfulness of Him, who, 
as the Creator of both, ordained this happy and wondrous adapta- 
tion. The monstrous suspicion of the sceptics is, that we are in the 
hands of a God, who, by the insertion of falsities into the human 
system, sports himself with a laborious deception on the creatures 
whom He hath made. The invariable order of nature, in conjunc- 
tion with the apprehension of this invariableness existing in all hearts ; 
the universal expectation with its universal fulfilment, is a triumphant 
refutation of this degrading mockery — evincing, that it is not a 
phantasmagoria in which we dwell, but a world peopled with reali- 
ties. That we are never misled in our instinctive belief of nature's 
uniformity, demonstrates the perfect safety wherewith we may com- 
mit ourselves to the guidance of our original principles] whether 
intellectual or moral — assured, that, instead of occupying a land of 
shadows, a region of universal doubt and derision, they are the sta- 
bilities, both of an everlasting truth and an everlasting righteousness 
with which we have to do. 

10. This lesson obtains a distinct and additional confirmation 
from every particular instance of adaptation, which can be found, 
of external nature, either to the moral or intellectual constitution 
of man. 



CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 207 

11. (2.) To understand our second adaptation we must advert to 
the difference that obtains between those truths which are so distinct 
and independent, that each can only be ascertained by a separate 
act of observation ; and those truths which are either logically or 
mathematically involved in each other.* For example, there is no 
such dependence between the colour of a flower and its smell, as 
that the one can be reasoned from the other ; and, every different 
specimen therefore, we, to ascertain the two facts of the colour and 
the smell, must have recourse to two observations. On the other 
hand, there is such a dependence between the proposition that self- 
preservation is the strongest and most general law of our nature, 
and the proposition that no man will starve if able and in circum- 
stances to work for his own maintenance — that the one proposition 
can be deduced by inference from the other, as the conclusion 
from the premises of an argument. And still more there is such a 
dependence between the proposition, that the planet moves in an 
elliptical orbit round the sun, having its focus in the centre of that 
luminary, and a thousand other propositions — so that without a se- 
parate observation for each of the latter, they can be reasoned from 
the former ; just as an infinity of truths and properties can, without 
observation, be satisfactorily demonstrated of many a curve from 
the simple definition of it. We do not affirm, that, in any case, we 
can establish a dogma, or make a discovery independently of all 
observation — any more than in a syllogism we are independent of 
observation for the truth of the premises — both the major and the 
minor propositions being generally verified in this way ; while the 
connexion between these and the conclusion, is all, in the syllo- 
gism, wherewith the art of logic has properly to do. In none of the 
sciences, is the logic of itself available for the purpose of discovery ; 
and it can only contribute to this object, when furnished with sound 
data, the accuracy of which is determined by observation alone. 
This holds particularly true of the mixed mathematics, where the 

* See this distinction admirably expounded in Whately's Logic — a work of pro- 
found judgment, and which effectually vindicates the honours of a science, that 
since the days of Bacon, or rather (which is more recent) since the days of his 
extravagant because exclusive authority, it has been too much the fashion to de- 
preciate. The author, if I might use the expression without irreverence, has given 
to Bacon the things which are Bacon's, and to Aristotle the things which are 
Aristotle's. He has strengthened the pretensions of logic by narrowing them — 
that is, instead of placing all the intellectual processess under its direction, by 
assigning to it as its proper subject the art of deduction alone. He has made most 
correct distinction between the inductive and the logical; and it is by attending to 
the respective provinces of each, that we come to perceive the incompetency of 
mere logic for the purpose of discovery strictly so called. The whole chapter on 
discovery is particularly valuable — leading us clearly to discriminate between that 
which logic can, and that which it cannot achieve. It is an instrument, not for the 
discovery of truth properly new, but for the discovery of truths which are enve- 
loped or virtually contained in propositions already known. It instructs but does 
not inform; and has nought to do in syllogism with the truth of the premises, but 
only with the truth of the connexion between the premises and the conclusion. 



208 THE INTELLECTUAL 

conclusions are sound, only in as far as the first premises are sound 
— which premises, in like manner, are not reasoned truths, but ob- 
served truths. Even in the pure mathematics, some obscurely initial 
or rudimental process of observation may have been necessary, ere 
the mind could arrive at its first conceptions, either of quantity or 
number. Certain it is, however, that, in all the sciences, however 
dependent on observation for the original data, we can, by reason- 
ing on the data, establish an indefinite number of distinct and im- 
portant and useful propositions — which, if soundly made out, obser- 
vation will afterwards verify ; but which, anterior to the application 
of this test, the mind, by its own cogitations, may have made the 
objects of its most legitimate conviction. It is thus that, on the one 
hand, we, by the inferences of a sound logic, can, on an infinity of 
subjects, discover what should for ever have remained unknown, 
had it been left to the findings of direct observation ; and that, on 
the other hand, though observation could not have made the disco- 
very, it never fails to attest it. Visionaries, on the one hand, may 
spurn at the ignoble patience and drudgery of observers ; and igno- 
rant practitioners, whether in the walks of business or legislation, 
may, on the other, raise their senseless and indiscriminate outcry 
against the reasoners — but he who knows to distinguish between an 
hypothesis based on imagination, and a theory based on experience, 
and perceives how helpless either reason or observation is, when 
not assisted by the other, will know how to assign the parts, and to 
estimate the prerogatives of both. 

12. When the mind has retired from direct converse with the ex- 
ternal world, and brought to its own inner chamber of thought the 
materials which it has collected there, it then delivers itself up to its 
own process — first ascending analytically from observed phenomena 
to principles, and then descending synthetically from principles to 
yet unobserved phenomena. We cannot but recognise it as an ex- 
quisite adaptation between the subjective and the objective, between 
the mental and the material systems — that the results of the abstract 
intellectual process and the realities of external nature should so 
strikingly harmonize.* It is exemplified in all the sciences, in the 

* There are some fine remarks by Sir John Herschell in his preliminary discourse 
on the study of Natural Philosophy on this adaptation of the abstract ideas to the 
concrete realities, of the discoveries made in the region of pure thought to the facts 
and phenomena of actual nature — -as when the properties of conic sections, demon- 
strated by a laborious analysis, remained inapplicable till they came to be embo- 
died in the real masses and movements of astronomy. 

"These marvellous computations might almost seem to have been devised on pur- 
pose to show how closely the extremes ol' speculative refinement and practical 

utility can be brought to approximate." Nersclu ll's Discourse, p. 28, 

"They show how large a part pure reason has to perform in the examination of 

nature, and how implicit our reliance OUghl to be on that powerful and methodical 
system of rules :uk1 processes, which Constitute the modern mathematical analysis, 
in all the more difficult applications of exact calculation to her phenomena." p. 33, 



CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 209 

economical, and the mental, and the physical, and most of all in the 
physico-mathematical — as when Newton, on the calculations and 
profound musings of his solitude, predicted the oblate spheroidal 
figure of the earth, and the prediction was confirmed by the mensu- 
rations of the academicians, both in the polar and equatorial regions, 
or as, when abandoning himself to the devices and the diagrams of 
his own construction, he thence scanned the cycles of the firmament, 
and elicited from the scroll of enigmatical characters which himself 
had framed, the secrets of a sublime astronomy, that high field so 
replete with wonders, yet surpassed by this greatest wonder of all, 
the intellectual mastery which man has over it. That such a feeble 
creature should have made this conquest — that a light struck out in 
the little cell of his own cogitations should have led to a disclosure 
so magnificent — that by a calculus of his own formation, as with the 
power of a talisman, the heavens, with their stupendous masses and 
untrodden distances, should have thus been opened to his gaze — can 
onlyj^e explained by the intervention of a Being having supremacy 
over all, and who has adjusted the laws of matter and the properties 
of mind to each other. It is only thus we can be made to under- 
stand, how man by the mere workings of his spirit, should have 
penetrated so far into the workmanship of Nature ; or that, re- 
stricted though he be to a spot of earth, he should nevertheless tell 
of the suns and systems that be afar — as if he had travelled with the 
line and plummet in his hand to the outskirts of creation, or carried 
the torch of discovery round the universe. 

13. (3.) Our next adaptation is most notably exemplified in those 
cases, when some isolated phenomenon, remote and having at first 
no conceivable relation to human affairs, is nevertheless converted 
by the plastic and productive intellect of man, into some application 
of mighty and important effect on the interests of the world. One 
example of this is the use that has been made of the occultations and 
emersions of Jupiter's satellites, in the computation of longitudes, and 
so the perfecting of navigation. When one contemplates a subser- 
viency of this sort fetched to us from afar, it is difficult not to ima- 
gine of it as being the fruit of some special adjustment, that came 
within the purpose of Him, who, in constructing the vast mechanism 
of Nature, overlooked not the humblest of its parts — but incorporated 
the good of our species, with the wider generalities and laws of a 

" Almost all the great combinations of modern mechanism and many of its refine- 
ments and nicer improvements, are creations of pure intellect, grounding its ex- 
ertion upon a very moderate number of elementary propositions, in theoretical me- 
chanics and geometry." p. 63. 

The discovery of the principle of the achromatic telescope, is termed by Sir John 
"a memorable case in science, though not a singular one, where the speculative 
geometer in his chamber, apart from the world, and existing among abstractions, 
has originated views of the noblest practical application." p. 255. 

18* 



210 THE INTELLECTUAL 

universal system.* The conclusion is rather enhanced than other- 
wise by the seemingly incidental way in which the telescope was 
discovered. The observation of the polarity of the magnet is an ex- 
ample of the same kind — and with the same result, in multiplying, 
by an enlarged commerce the enjoyments of life, and speeding on- 
ward the science and civilization of the globe. There cannot a 
purer instance be given, of adaptation between external nature and 
the mind of man — than when some material, that would have re- 
mained for ever useless in the hands of the unintelligent and un- 
thoughtful, is converted, by the fertility and power of the human un- 
derstanding, into an instrument for the further extension of our 
knowledge or our means of gratification. The prolongation of their 
eyesight to the aged by the means of convex lenses, made from a 

* The author of the Natural History of Enthusiasm, in his edition of Edward's 
treatise on the will, presents us with the following energetic sentences on this 
subject. 

"Every branch of modern science abounds with instances of remote correspon- 
dences between the great system of the world, and the artificial {the truly natural) 
condition to which knowledge raises him. If these correspondences were single or 
rare they might be deemed merely fortuitous ; like the drifting of a plank athwart 
the track of one who is swimming from a wreck. But when they meet us on all 
sides and invariably, we must be resolute in atheism not to confess that they are 
emanations from one and the same centre of wisdom and goodness. Is it nothing 
more than a lucky accommodation which makes the polarity of the needle to sub- 
serve the purposes of the mariner ? or may it not safely be affirmed, both that the 
magnetic influence (whatever its primary intention may be) had reference to the 
business of navigation — a reference incalculably important to the spread and im- 
provement of the human race. ; and that the discovery and the application of this 
influence arrived at the destined moment in the revolution of human affairs when 
in combination with other events, it would produce the greatest effect ? Nor should 
we scruple to affirm that the relation between the inclination of the earth's axis and 
the conspicuous star which, without a near rival, attracts even the eye of the vul- 
gar, and shows the north to the wanderer on the wilderness or on the ocean, is in 
like manner a beneficent arrangement. Those who would spurn the supposition 
that the celestial locality of a sun immeasurably remote from our system, should 
have reference to the accommodation of the inhabitants of a planet so inconsidera- 
ble as our own, forget the style of the Divine Works, which is, to serve some great 
or principal end, compatibly with ten thousand lesser and remoter interests. Man 
if he would secure the greater, must neglect or sacrifice the less; not so the Omni- 
potent Contriver. It is a fact full of meaning, that those astronomical phenomena 
(and so others) which offer themselves as available for the purposes of art, as for 
instance of navigation, or geography, do not fully or effectively, yield the end they 
promise, until after long and elaborate processes of calculation have disentangled 
them from variations, disturbing forces and apparent irregularities. To the rude 
fact, if so we might designate it, a mass of recondite science must be appended, 
before it can be brought to bear with precision upon the arts of life. Thus the 
polarity of the needle or the eclipses of Jupiter's moons are as nothing to the 
mariner, or geographer, without the voluminous commentary furnished by the 
mathematics of astronomy. The fact of the expansive force of steam must employ 
the intelligence and energy of the mechanicians of an empire, during a century, 
before the whole of its beneficial powers can be put in activity. Chemical, medi- 
cal, and botanical science is filled with parallel instances; and they all affirm, in m 
articulate maimer, the two-fold purpose of the Creator — to benefit man and to 
educate him. 



CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 211 

substance at once transparent and colourless — the force of steam 
with the manifold and ever growing applications which are made of 
it — the discovery of platina, which, by its resistance to the fiercest 
heats, is so available in prosecuting the ulterior researches of chemis- 
try* — even the very abundance and portability of those materials by 
which written characters can be multiplied, and, through the impulse 
thus given to the quick and copious circulation of human thoughts, 
mind acts with rapid diffusion upon mind though at a distance of a 
hemisphere from each other, conceptions and informations and rea- 
sonings these products of the intellect alone being made to travel over 
the world by the intervention of material substances — these, while 
but themselves only a few taken at random from the multitude of 
strictly appropriate specimens which could be alleged of an adapta- 
tion between the systems of mind and matter, are sufficient to mark 
an obvious contrivance and forth-putting of skill in the adjustment of 
the systems to each other. Enough has been already done to prove 
of mind with its various powers, that it is the fittest agent which 
could have been employed for working upon matter; and of matter, 
with its various properties and combinations, that it is the fittest in- 
strument which could have been placed under the disposal of mind. 
Every new triumph achieved by the human intellect over external 
nature, whether in the way of discovery or of art, serves to make the 
proof more illustrious. In the indefinite progress of science and in- 
vention, the mastery of man over the elements which surround him 
is every year becoming more conspicuous — the pure result of adap- 
tation, or of the way in which mind and matter have been conformed 
to each other ; the first endowed by the Creator with those powers 
which qualify it to command ; the second no less evidently endowed 
with those corresponding susceptibilities wmich cause it to obey. 

14. (4.) The way is now prepared for our next adaptation which 
hinges upon this — that the highest efforts of intellectual power, and 
to which few men are competent; the most difficult intellectual pro- 
cess, requiring the utmost abstraction and leisure for their develope- 
ment, and often indispensable to discoveries, which, when once made, 
are found capable of those useful applications, the value of which is 
felt and recognised by all men. The most arduous mathematics had 
to be put into requisition, for the establishment of the lunar theory — 

• This among- many such lessons will teach us that the most important uses of 
natural objects are not those which offer themselves to us most obviously. The 
chief use of the moon for man's immediate purposes remained unknown to him for 
five thousand years from his creation. And since it cannot but be that innumerable 
and most important uses remain to be discovered among the materials and objects 
already known to us, as well as among" those which the progress of science must 
hereafter disclose, we may here conceive a well-grounded expectation, not only of 
constant increase in the physical resources of mankind, and the consequent improve- 
ment of their condition, but of continual accessions to our power of penetrating into 
the arcana of nature, and becoming acquainted with her highest laws. Sir John 
Herschell's Discourse, p. 308, 309. 



212 THE INTELLECTUAL 

without which our present lunar observations, could have been of 
no use for the determination of the longitude. This dependence of 
the popular and the practical on an anterior profound science runs 
through much of the business of life, in the mechanics and chemistry 
of manufactures as well as in navigation; and indeed is more or 
less exemplified so widely, or rather universally, through the va- 
rious departments of human industry and art, that it most essentially 
contributes to the ascendency of mind over muscular force in society 
— beside securing for mental qualities, the willing and reverential 
homage of the multitude. This peculiar influence stands compli- 
cated with other arrangements, requiring a multifarious combina- 
tion, that speaks all the more emphatically for a presiding intellect, 
which must have devised and calculated the whole. We have 
already stated,* by what peculiarity in the soil it was, that a certain 
number of the species was exempted from the necessity of labour; 
and without which, in fact, all science and civilization would have 
been impossible. We have also expounded in some degree the 
principle, which both originated the existing arrangements of pro- 
perty, and lead men to acquiesce in them. But still it is a preca- 
rious acquiescence, and liable to be disturbed by many operating 
causes of distress and discontent in society. If there be influences 
on the side of the established order of things, there are also counter- 
active influences on the opposite side, of revolt and irritation against 
it ; and by which, the natural reverence of men for rank and station, 
may at length be overborne. In the progress of want and demorali- 
zation among the people, in the pressure of their increasing num- 
bers, by which, they at once outgrow the means of instruction, and 
bear more heavily on the resources of the land than before ; in the 
felt straitness of their condition, and the proportionate vehemence 
of their aspirations after enlargement — nothing is easier than to give 
them a factitious sense of their wrongs, and to inspire them with 
the rankling imagination of a heartless and haughty indifference 
on the part of their lordly superiors towards them, whose very oc- 
cupation of wealth, they may be taught to regard as a monopoly, 
the breaking down of which were an act of generous patriotism. 
Against these brooding elements of revolution in the popular mind, 
the most effectual preservative certainly, were the virtue of the 
upper classes, — or that our great men should be good men. But a 
mighty help to this, and next to it in importance were, that to ihe 
power which lies in wealth, they should superadd the power which 
lies in knowledge — or that the vulgar superiority of mere affluence 
and station, should be strengthened in a way that would command 
the willing homage of all spirits, thai is, by the mental superiority 
which their opportunities of lengthened and laborious education 
enable them to acquire. By a wise ordination of Nature, the pos- 

* Part t. c. vi. 39, 



CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 213 

sessors of rank and fortune, simply as such, have a certain ascend- 
ant power over their fellows; and, by the same ordination, the 
possessors of learning have an ascendency also — and it would 
mightily conduce to the strength and stability of the commonwealth, 
if these influences were conjoined, or, in other words, if the scale of 
wealth and the scale of intelligence, in as far as that was dependent 
on literary culture, could be made to harmonize. The constitution 
of science, or the adaptation which obtains between the objects of 
knowledge and the knowing faculties, is singularly favourable to 
the alliance for which we now plead — insomuch that, to sound the 
depths of philosophy, time and independence and exemption from 
the cares and labours of ordinary life seem indispensable; and, on 
the other hand, profound discoveries, or a profound acquaintance 
with them, are sure to command a ready deference even from the 
multitude, whether on account of the natural respect which all men 
feel for pre-eminent understanding, or on account of the palpable 
utilities to which, in a system of things so connected as ours, even 
the loftiest and most recondite science is found to be subservient 
On the same principle, that, in a ship, the skilful navigation of its 
captain will secure for him the prompt obedience of the crew to all 
his directions;* or that, in an army, the consummate generalship of 
its commander will subordinate all the movements of the immense 
host, to the power of one controlling and actuating will — so, in 
general society, did wealth by means of a thorough scholarship 

* We have before us an anecdote communicated to us by a naval officer, (Captain 
Basil Hall,) distinguished for the extent and variety of his attainments, which shows 
how impressive such results may become in practice. He sailed from San Bias on 
the west coast of Mexico, and after a voyage of 8000 miles, occupying eighty-nine 
days, arrived off Rio Janeiro, having in this interval passed through the Pacific 
Ocean, rounded Cape Horn, and crossed the South Atlantic, without making any 
land, or even seeing a single sail, with the exception of an American whaler off 
Cape Horn. Arrived within a week's sail of Rio, he set seriously about determin- 
ing, by lunar observations, the precise line of the ship's course, and its situation in 
it at a determinate moment, and having ascertained this within from five to ten 
miles, ran the rest of the way by those more ready and compendious methods, 
known to navigators, which can be safely employed for short trips between one 
known point and another, but which cannot be trusted in long voyages, where the 
moon is their only guide. The rest of the tale we are enabled by his kindness to 
state in his own words: — "We steered towards Rio Janeiro for some days after 
taking the lunars above described, and having arrived within fifteen or twenty miles 
of the coast, I hove-to till four in the morning when the day should break, and 
then bore up ; for although it was very hazy, we could see before us a couple of 
miles or so. About eight o'clock it became so foggy that I did not like to stand in 
farther, and was just bringing the ship to the wind again before sending the people 
to breakfast, when it suddenly cleared off, and I had the satisfaction of seeing the 
great sugar-loaf peak, which stands or. one side of the harbour's mouth, so nearly 
right a-head that we had not to alter our course above a point, in order to hit the 
entrance of Rio. This was the first land we had seen for three months, after cross- 
ing so many seas, and being set backwards and forwards by innumerable currents 
and foul winds." "The effect on all on board might well be conceived to have been 
electric ; and it is needless to remark how essentially the authority of a command- 



214 THE INTELLECTUAL 

on the part of the higher classes, but maintain an intimate fellow- 
ship with wisdom and sound philosophy — then, with the same con- 
servative influence as in these other examples, would the intellectual 
ascendency thus acquired, be found of mighty effect, to consolidate 
and maintain all the gradations of the commonwealth. 

15. It is thus that a vain and frivolous aristocracy, averse to se- 
vere intellectual discipline, and beset with the narrow prejudices of 
an order, let themselves down from that high vantage-ground on 
which fortune hath placed them — where, by a right use of the capa- 
bilities belonging to the state in which they were born, they might 
have kept their firm footing to the latest generations. Did all truth 
lie at the surface of observation, and it was alike accessible to all 
men, they could not with such an adaptation of external nature to 
man's intellectual constitution, have realised the peculiar advantage 
on which we are now insisting. But it is because there is so much 
of important and applicable truth, which lies deep and hidden under 
the surface, and which can only be appropriated by men, who com- 
bine unbounded leisure with the habit or determination of strenuous 
mental effort — it is only because of such an adaptation, that they 
who are gifted with property are, as a class, gifted with the means, 
if they would use it, of a great intellectual superiority over the rest 
of the species. There is a strong natural veneration for wealth, 
and also a strong natural veneration for wisdom. It is by the union 
of the two that the horrors of revolutionary violence, might for ever 
be averted from the land. Did our high-born children of affluence. 
for every ten among them, the mere loungers of effeminacy and 
fashion, or the mere lovers of sport and sensuality and splendour — 
did they, for every ten of such, furnish but one enamoured of 
higher gymnastics, the gymnastics of the mind ; and who accom- 
plished himself for the work and warfare of the senate, by his deep 
and comprehensive views in all the proper sciences of a statesman, 
the science of government, and politics, and commerce, and eco- 
nomics, and history, and human nature, — by a few gigantic men 
among them, thus girded for the services of patriotism, a nation 
might be saved — because arrested on that headlong descent, which, 
at the impulse of the popular will, it might else have made, from 
one measure of fair but treacherous promise, from one ruinous 
plausibility to another. The thing most to be dreaded, is that hasty 
and superficial legislation, into which a goverment may be hurried 
by the successive onsets of public impatience, and under the impulse 

ing officer over his crew may be strengthened by the occurrence of such incidents, 
indicative of a degree of knowledge and consequent power beyond their reach." — 
Herschcll's Discourse, p. 28, 29. 

it is an extreme instance of the connexion between mental power and civil or 
political ascendency, though often verified in the history of the world — that military 
science has often led to the establishment of a military despotism. 



CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 215 

of a popular and prevailing cry. Now the thing most needed, as a 
counteractive to this evil, is a thoroughly intellectual parliament, 
where shall predominate that masculine sense which has been trained 
for act and application by masculine studies ; and where the silly 
watch-word of theory shall not be employed, as heretofore, to over- 
bear the lessons of soundly generalised truth — because instead of 
being discerned at a glance, they are fetched from the depths of 
philosophic observation, or shone upon by lights from afar, in the 
accumulated experience of ages. We have infinitely more to ap- 
prehend from the demagogues than from the doctrinaires of our 
present crisis ; and it will require a far profounder attention to the 
principles of every question than many deem to be necessary, or 
than almost any are found to bestow, to save us from the crudities 
of a blindfold legislation.* 

16. And it augurs portentously for the coming destinies of our 
land, that, in the present rage for economy, such an indiscriminate 
havoc should have been made — so that pensions and endowments 
for the reward or encouragement of science, should have had the 
same sentence of extinction passed upon them, as the most worth- 
less sinecures. The difficulties of our most sublime, and often too 

* This mental superiority which the higher clases might and ought to cultivate, 
is not incompatible, but the contrary, with a general ascent in the scholarship of 
the population at large. On this subject we have elsewhere said — that "there is 
a bigotry on the side of endowed seminaries which leads those whom it actuates to 
be jealous of popular institutions. And, on the other hand, there is a generous 
feeling towards these institutions, which is often accompanied with a certain despite 
towards the endowed and established seminaries. We think that a more compre- 
hensive consideration of the actings and readings which take place in society, 
should serve to abate the heats of this partisanship, and that what in one view is 
regarded as the conflict of jarring and hostile elements, should, in another, be re- 
joiced in as a luminous concourse of influences, tending to accomplish the grand 
and beneficent result of an enlightened nation. It is just because we wish so well 
to colleges, that we hail the prosperity of mechanic institutions. The latter will 
never outrun the former, but so stimulate them onwards, that the literature of our 
higher classes shall hold the same relative advancement as before over the litera- 
ture of our artisans. It will cause no derangement and no disproportion. The 
light which shall then overspread the floor of the social edifice, will only cause the 
lustres which are in the higher apartments to blaze more gorgeously. The base- 
ment of the fabric will be greatly more elevated, yet without violence to the sym- 
metry of the whole architecture ; for the pinnacles and upper stories of the build- 
ing will rise as proudly and as gracefully as ever above the platform which sustains 
them. There is indefinite room in truth and science for an ascending movement, 
and the taking up of higher positions ; and if, in virtue of a popular philosophy 
now taught in schools of art, we are to have more lettered mechanics, this will be 
instantly followed up by a higher philosophy in colleges than heretofore ; and in 
virtue of which we shall also have a more accomplished gentry, a more intellectual 
parliament, a more erudite clergy, and altogether a greater force and fullness of 
mind throughout all the departments of the commonwealth. The whole of society 
will ascend together, and therefore without disturbance to the relation of its parts. 
But, in every stage of this progress, the endowed colleges will continue to be the 
highest places of intellect; the country's richest lore and its most solid and severest 
philosophy will always be found in them." Use and Abuse of Literary and Eccle- 
siastical Endowments. 



216 THE INTELLECTUAL 

our most useful knowledge, make it inaccessible to all but to those 
who are exempt from the care of their own maintenance — so that 
unless a certain, though truly insignificant portion of the country's 
wealth, be expended in this way, all high and transcendental philo- 
sophy, however conducive as it often is, to the strength as well as 
glory of a nation must vanish from the land. When the original 
possessors of wealth neglect individually this application of it ; and, 
whether from indolence or the love of pleasure, fall short of that 
superiority in mental culture, of which the means have been put 
into their hands — we can only reproach their ignoble preference, 
and lament the ascendant force of sordid and merely animal pro- 
pensities, over the principles of their better and higher nature. But 
when that which individuals do in slavish compliance with their in- 
dolence and passions, the state is also found to do in the exercise of 
its deliberative wisdom, and on the maxims of a settled policy — 
when instead of ordaining any new destination of wealth in favour 
of science, it would divorce and break asunder the goodly alliance 
by a remorseless attack on the destinations of wiser and better days 
— such a gothic spoliation as this, not a deed of lawless cupidity but 
the mandate of a senate-house, were a still more direct and glaring 
contravention to the wisdom of Nature, and to the laws of that eco- 
nomy which Nature hath instituted. The adaptation of which we 
now speak, between the external system of the universe, and the in- 
tellectual system of man, were grossly violated by such an outrage ; 
and it is a violence which Nature would resent by one of those sig- 
nal chastisements, the examples of which are so frequent in history. 
The truth is that, viewed as a manifestation of the popular will, 
which tumultuates against all that wont to command the respect 
and admiration of society, and is strong enough to enforce its dicta- 
tions — it may well be regarded, as one of the deadliest symptoms of 
a nation ripening for anarchy, that dread consummation, by which, 
however, the social state, relieved of its distempers, is at length re- 
novated like the atmosphere by a storm, after throwing off from it, 
the dregs and the degeneracy of an iron age.* 

17. (5.) We shall do little more than state two other adaptations, 
although more might be noticed, and all do admit of a much fuller 
elucidation than we can bestow upon them. And first, there is a 
countless diversity of sciences, and correspondent to this, a like di- 
versity in the tastes and talents of men, presenting, therefore, a most 
beneficial adaptation, between the objects of human knowledge and 
the powers of human knowledge. Even in one science there arc 
often many subdivisions, each requiring a separate mental fitness, 
on the part of those, who might select it as their own favourite walk, 
which they most love, and in which they arc best qualified to excel 

• The same effect is still more likely to ensue from the spoliation and secularisa- 
tion of ecclesiastical property. 



CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 217 

In most of the physical sciences, how distinct the business of the ob- 
servation is from that of the philosophy ; and how important to their 
progress, that, for each appropriate work, there should be men of 
appropriate faculties or habits, who in the execution of their respec- 
tive tasks, do exceedingly multiply and enlarge the products of the 
mind — even as the grosser products of human industry are multi- 
plied by the subdivision of employment.* It is well, that, for that 
infinite variety of intellectual pursuits, necessary to explore all the 
recesses of a various and complicated external nature, there should 
be a like variety of intellectual predilections and powers scattered 
over the species — a congruity between the world of mind and the 
world of matter, of the utmost importance, both to the perfecting of 
art, and to the progress and perfecting of science. Yet it is mar- 
vellous of these respective labourers, though in effect they work 
simultaneously and to each other's hands, how little respect or sym- 
pathy, or sense of importance, they have for any department of the 
general field, for any section in the w r ide encyclopaedia of human 
learning, but that on which their own faculties are concentrated and 
absorbed. We cannot imagine aught more dissimilar and uncon- 
genial, than the intentness of a mathematician on his demonstrations 
and diagrams, and the equal intentness, nay delight, of a collector or 
antiquarian on the faded manuscripts and uncial characters of other 
days. Yet in the compound result of all these multiform labours, 
there is a goodly and sustained harmony, between the practitioners 
and the theorists of science, between the pioneers and the monarchs 
of literature — even as in the various offices of a well-arranged house- 
hold, although there should be no mutual intelligence between the 
subordinates who fill them, there is a supreme and connecting wis- 
dom which presides over and animates the whole. The goodly 
system of philosophy, when viewed as the product of innumerable 
contributions, by minds of all possible variety, and men of all ages 
— bears like evidence to the universe being a spacious household, 
under the one and consistent direction of Him who is at once the 
Parent and the Master of a universal family.f 

18. And here it is not out of place to remark, that it is the very 
perfection of the Divine workmanship, which leads every inquirer 
to imagine a surpassing worth and grace and dignity in his own 
special department of it. The fact is altogether notorious, that in 
order to attain a high sense of the importance of any science, and 

* There is no accounting' for the difference of minds or inclinations, which leads 
one man to observe with interest the developement of phenomena, another to spe- 
culate on their causes ; but were it not for this happy disagreement, it may be 
doubted whether the higher sciences could ever have attained even their present 
degree of perfection." Sir John HerschelPs Discourses, p. 131. 

f The benefit of subdivision in science should lead to the multiplication of pro- 
fessorships in our literary institutes, and at all events should prevent the parsimo- 
nious suppression of them, or the parsimonious amalgamation of the duties of two 
or more into one. 

19 



218 THE INTELLECTUAL 

of the worth and beauty of the objects which it embraces — nothing 
more is necessary than the intent and persevering study of them. 
Whatever the walk of philosophy may be on which man shall enter, 
that is the walk which of all others he conceives to be most en- 
riched, by all that is fitted to entertain the intellect, or arrest the ad- 
miration of the enamoured scholar. The astronomer who can un- 
ravel the mechanism of the heavens, or the chemist who can trace 
the atomic processes of matter upon earth, or the metaphysician 
who can assign the laws of human thought, or the grammarian who 
can discriminate the niceties of language, or the naturalist who can 
classify the flowers and the birds, and the shells and the minerals 
and the insects which so teem and multiply in this world of wonders 
— each of these respective inquirers is apt to become the worshipper 
of his own theme, and to look with a sort of indifference, bordering 
on contempt, towards what he imagines the far less interesting track 
of his fellow-labourers. Now each is right in the admiration he 
renders to the grace and grandeur of that field which himself has 
explored ; but all are wrong in the distaste they feel, or rather in the 
disregard they cast on the other fields which they have never en- 
tered. We should take the testimony of each to the worth of that 
which he does know, and reject the testimony of each to the com- 
parative worthlessness of that which he does not know ; and then 
the unavoidable inference is that that must be indeed a replete and 
a gorgeous universe in which we dwell — and still more glorious the 
Eternal Mind, from whose conception it arose, and whose prolific 
fiat gave birth to it, in all its vastness and variety. And instead of 
the temple of science having been reared, it were more proper to 
say, that the temple of nature had been evolved. The archetype of 
science is the universe ; and it is in the disclosure of its successive 
parts, that science advances from step to step — not properly raising 
any new architecture of its own, but rather unveiling by degrees an 
architecture that is old as the creation. The labourers in philoso- 
phy create nothing; but only bring out into exhibition that which 
was before created. And there is a resulting harmony in their la- 
bours, however widely apart from each other they may have been 
prosecuted — not because they have adjusted one part to another, but 
because the adjustment has been already made to their hands. There 
comes forth, it is true, of their labours, a most magnificent harmony, 
yet not a harmony which they have made, but a pre-existent har- 
mony which they have only made visible — so that when tempted to 
idolize philosophy, let us transfer the homage to Him who both 
formed the philosopher's mind, and furnished his philosophy with all 
its materials. 

ID. ((5.) The last adaptation that we shall instance is rather one 
of mind to mind, and depends on a previous adaptation in each mind 
of tho mental faculties to one another. For the righl working oi' 
the mind, it is not enough that each of its separate powers shall be 






CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 219 

provided with adequate strength — they must be mixed in a certain 
proportion — for the greatest inconvenience might be felt, not in the 
defect merely, but in the excess of some of them. We have heard 
of too great a sensibility in the organ of hearing, giving rise to an 
excess in the faculty, which amounted to disease, by exposing the 
patient to the pain and disturbance of too many sounds, even of those 
so faint and low, as to be inaudible to the generality of men. In 
like manner we can imagine the excess of a property purely mental, 
of memory for example, amounting to a malady of the intellect, by 
exposing the victim of it to the presence and the perplexity of too 
many ideas, even of those which are so insignificant, that it would 
lighten and relieve the mind, if they had no place there at all.* Cer- 
tain it is that the more full and circumstantial is the memory, the 
more is given for the judgment to do — its proper work of selecting 
and comparing becoming the more oppressive, with the number and 
distraction of irrelevant materials. It would have been better that 
these had found no original admittance within the chamber of recol- 
lection ; or that only things of real and sufficient importance had left 
an enduring impression upon its tablet. In other words, it would 
have been better, that the memory had been less susceptible or less 
retentive than it is ; and this may enable us to perceive the exquisite 
balancing that must have been requisite, in the construction of the 
mind — when the very defect of one faculty is thus made to aid and 
to anticipate the operations of another. He who alone knoweth the 
secrets of the spirits, formed them with a wisdom to us unsearch- 
able. 

20. Certain it is however that variety in the proportion of their 
faculties, is one chief cause of the difference between the minds of 
men. And whatever the one faculty may be, in any individual, 
which predominates greatly beyond the average of the rest — that 
faculty is selected as the characteristic by which to distinguish him; 
and thus he may be designed as a man of judgment, or information, 
or fancy, or wit, or oratory. It is this variety in their respective 
gifts, which originates so beautiful a dependence and reciprocity of 
mutual services among men ; and, more especially, when any united 
movement or united counsel is requisite, that calls forth the co-ope- 
ration of numbers. No man combines all the ingredients of mental 
power; and no man is wanting in all of them — so that, while none is 
wholly independent of others, each possesses some share of impor- 
tance in the commonwealth. The defects, even of the highest minds, 
may thus need to be supplemented, by the counterpart excellencies 

* It has been said of Sir James Mackintosh, that the excess of his memory was 
felt by him as an incumbrance in the writing" of history — adding- as it did to the dif- 
ficulty of selection. It is on the same principle that the very multitude of one'a 
ideas and words may form an obstacle to extemporaneous speaking 1 , as has been 
illustrated by Dean Swift under the comparison of a thin church emptying- faster 
than a crowded one. 



220 THE INTELLECTUAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 

of minds greatly inferior to their own — and, in this way, the pride 
of exclusive superiority is mitigated; and the respect which is due 
to our common humanity is more largely diffused throughout socie- 
ty, and shared more equally among all the members of it. Nature 
hath so distributed her gifts among her children, as to promote a 
mutual helpfulness, and, what perhaps is still more precious, a mutual 
humility among men. 

21. In almost all the instances of mental superiority, it will be 
found, that it. is a superiority above the average level of the species, 
in but one thing — or that arises from the predominance of one faculty 
above all the rest. So much is this the case, that when the example 
does occur, of an individual, so richly gifted as to excel in two of 
the general or leading powers of the mind, his reputation for the 
one will impede the establishment of his reputation for the other. 
There occurs to us one very remarkable case of the injustice, done 
by the men who have but one faculty, to the men who are under the 
misfortune of having two. In the writings of Edmund Burke, there 
has at length been discovered, a rich mine of profound and strik- 
ingly just reflections, on the philosophy of public affairs. But he 
felt as well as thought, and saw the greatness and beauty of things, 
as well as their relations ; and so, he could at once penetrate the 
depths, and irradiate the surface of any object that he contemplated. 
The light which he flung from him, entered the very innermost 
shrines and recesses of his subject; but then it was light tinged with 
the hues of his own brilliant imagination, and many gazing at the 
splendour, recognised not the weight and the wisdom underneath. 
They thought him superficial, but just because themselves arrested 
at the surface ; and either because with the capacity of emotion but 
without that of judgment, or because with the capacity of judgment 
but without that of emotion — they, from the very mcagreness and 
mutilation of their own faculties, were incapable of that complex 
homage, due to a complex object which had both beauty and truth 
for its ingredients. Thus it was that the very exuberance of his 
genius, injured the man, in the estimation of the pigmies around 
him ; and the splendour of his imagination detracted from the credit 
of his wisdom. Fox had the sagacity to see this; and posterity 
now see it. Now that, instead of a passing meteor, he is fixed by 
authorship in the literary hemisphere, men can make a study of him: 
and be at once regaled by the poetry, and instructed by the pro- 
foundness of his wondrous lucubrations. 



221 



CHAPTER II. 

On the Connexion between the Intellect and the Emotions. 

1. The intellectual states of the mind, and its states of emotion, 
belong to distinct provinces of the mental constitution — the former 
to the percipient, and the latter to what Sir James Mackintosh would 
term the emotive or pathematic part of our nature. Bentham ap- 
plies the term pathology to the mind in somewhat the same sense — 
not expressive, as in medical science, of states of disease, under 
which the body suffers ; but expressive, in mental science, of states 
of susceptibility, under which the mind is in any way affected, 
whether painfully or pleasurably. Had it not been for the previous 
usurpation or engagement of this term by medical writers, who re- 
strict the application of it to the distempers of our corporeal frame, 
it might have been conveniently extended to all the susceptibilities of 
the mental constitution — even when that constitution is in its health- 
ful and natural state. According to the medical use of it, the Greek 
tfatfxw from which it is derived, is understood in the sense of the 
Latin translation, patior, to suffer. According to the sense which 
we now propose for it, in treating the mental phenomena, the Greek 
tatr^w would be understood in the sense of the Latin translation 
afficior to be affected. When treating of the mental pathology, we 
treat, not of mental sufferings, but, more general, of mental suscep- 
tibilities. The tfatf^w of the Greek, whence the term comes, is 
equivalent to the " patior" or the " afficior" of Latin, — the former 
signifying " to suffer," and the latter simply " to be affected," — the 
former sense being the one that is retained in medical, and the latter 
in mental pathology. The two differ as much the one from the 
other as passion does from affection, or the violence of a distem- 
pered does from the due and pacific effect of a natural influence. 
Even the Latin patior might be translated, not merely into " suffer" 
but into " the being acted upon" or into " the being passive." Me- 
dical pathology is the study of those diseases under which the body 
suffers. Mental pathology is the study of all those phenomena 
that arise from influences acting upon the mind viewed as passive, 
or as not putting forth any choice or activity at the time. Now, 
when thus defined, it will embrace all that we understand by sensa- 
tions, and affections, and passions. It is not of my will that certain 
colours impress their appropriate sensations upon my eye, or that 
certain sounds impress their sensations upon my ear. It is not of 
my will, but of an organization which I often cannot help, that I am 
so nervously irritable, under certain disagreeable sights and dis- 
agreeable noises. It is not of my will, but of an aggressive influence 
which I cannot withstand, that, when placed on an airy summit, 

19* 



222 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE 

I forthwith swim in giddiness, and am seized with the imagina- 
tion, that if I turn not my feet and my eyes from the frightful 
precipice's margin, I shall topple to its base. Neither is it of 
my will that I am visited with such ineffable disgust at the 
sight of some loathsome animal. But these are strong instances, 
and perhaps evince a state bordering upon disease. Yet we may 
gather from them some general conception of w 7 hat is meant by 
mental pathology, whose design it is to set forth all those states of 
feeling, into which the mind is thrown, by the influence of those 
various objects that are fitted to excite, either the emotions or the 
sensitive affections of our nature. And, to keep the subject of 
mental pathology pure, we shall suppose these states of feeling to be 
altogether unmodified by the will, and to be the very states which 
result from the law of the external senses, or the laws of emotion, 
operating upon us at the time, when the mind is either wholly pow- 
erless or wholly inactive. To be furnished with one comprehensive 
term, by which to impress a mark on so large an order of phenom- 
na, must be found very commodious ; and though we have adverted 
to the etymology of the term, yet, in truth, it is of no consequence 
whether the process of derivation be accurate or not — seeing that 
the most arbitrary definition, if it only be precise in its objects, and 
have a precisely expressed sense affixed to it, can serve all the pur- 
poses for which a definition is desirable. 

2. The emotions enter largely into the pathological department of 
our nature. They are distinguishable both from the appetites and 
the external affections, in that they are mental and not bodily — 
though, in common with these, they are characterised by a peculiar 
vividness of feeling, which distinguishes them from the intellectual 
states of the mind. It may not be easy to express the difference in 
language ; but we never confound them in specific interests — being 
at no loss to which of the two classes we should refer the acts of 
memory and judgment ; and to which we should refer the sentiments 
of fear, or gratitude, or shame, or any of the numerous affections 
and desires of which the mind is susceptible. 

3. The first belonging to this class that we shall notice is the 
desire of knowledge, or the principle of curiosity — having all the 
appearance and character of a distinct and original tendency in the 
mind, implanted there for the purpose to which it is so obviously 
subservient. This principle evinces its reality and strength in very 
early childhood, even anterior to the faculty of speech — as might be 
observed in the busy manipulations and exploring looks oi the little 
infant, on any new article that is placed within its reach: and after- 
wards, by its importunate and never-ending questions. It is this 
avidity of knowledge? which forms the great impellent to the acqui- 
sition of it — being in fact the hunger of the mind, ami strikingly 
analogous to the corresponding bodily appetite, in those respects, by 
which each is manifested, to be the product of a higher wisdom 



INTELLECT AND THE EMOTIONS. ' 223 

than ours, the effect of a more providential care than man would 
have taken of himself. The corporeal appetency seeks for food as 
its terminating object, without regard to its ulterior effect in the sus- 
taining of life. The mental appetency seeks for knowledge, the 
food of the mind, as its terminating object, without regard to its 
ulterior benefits, both in the guidance of life, and the endless multi- 
plication of its enjoyments. The prospective wisdom of man could 
be trusted with neither of these great interests ; and so the urgent 
appetite of hunger had to be provided for the one, aqd the like 
urgent principle of curiosity had to be provided for the other. Each 
of them bears the same evidence of a special contrivance for a 
special object — and that by one who took a more comprehensive 
view of our welfare, than we are capable of taking for ourselves ; 
and made his own additions to the mechanism, for the express pur- 
pose of supplementing the deficiency of human foresight. The re- 
semblance between the two cases goes strikingly to demonstrate, 
how a mental constitution might as effectually bespeak the hand of 
an intelligent Maker, as does a physical or material constitution. It 
is true, that, with the great majority of men, the intellectual is not 
so urgent or imperious, as is the animal craving. But even for this 
difference, we can perceive a reason, which would not have been 
found, under a random economy of things. Each man's hunger 
would need to be alike strong, or at least strong enough to ensure 
the taking of food for himself — for to this effect, he will receive no 
benefit from another man's hunger. But there is not the same rea- 
son why each man's curiosity should be alike strong — for the curi- 
osity of one man might subserve the supply of information and in- 
tellectual food to the rest of the species. To enlarge the knowledge 
of the world, it is not needed, that all men should be endowed with 
such a strength of desire for it, as to bear them onward through the 
toils of original investigation. The dominant, the aspiring curiosity, 
which impels the adventurous traveller to untrodden regions, will 
earn discoveries, not for himself alone, but for all men — if their cu- 
riosity be but strong enough for the perusal of his agreeable record, 
under the shelter, and amid the comforts of their own home. And 
it is so in all the sciences. The unquenchable thirst of a few, is 
ever drawing supplies of new truth, which are shared in by thou- 
sands. There is an obvious meaning in this variety, between the 
stronger curiosity of the few who discover truth, and the weaker 
curiosity of the many who acquire it. The food which hunger 
impels man to take, is for his own aliment alone. The fruit of that 
study to which the strength of his own curiosity impels him, may 
become the property of all men. 

4. But, apart from this singularity, we behold in curiosity, viewed 
as a general attribute, a manifest adaptation to the circumstances in 
which man is placed. If, on the one hand, we look to the rich and 
exhaustless variety of truth, in a universe fraught with the materials 



224 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE 

of a most stupendous and overgrowing philosophy, and each depart- 
ment of which is fitted to stimulate and regale the curiosity of the 
human mind — we should say of such an external nature as this, that, 
presenting a most appropriate field to the inquisitive spirit of our 
race, it was signally adapted to the intellectual constitution of man. 
Or if, on the other hand, besides looking to the world as a theatre 
for the delightful entertainment of our powers, we behold it, in the 
intricacy of its phenomena and laws, in its recondite mysteries, in 
its deep and difficult recesses yet conquerable to an indefinite extent 
by the perseverance of man, and therefore as a befitting theatre for 
the busy and most laborious exercise of his powers — we should say 
of such an intellectual constitution as ours, that it was signally 
adapted to the system of external nature. It would require a cu- 
riosity as strong and steadfast as Nature hath given us, to urge us 
onward, through the appalling difficulties of a search so laborious. 
Hunger is the great impellent to corporeal labour, and the gratifica- 
tion of this appetite is its reward. Curiosity is a great impellent to 
mental labour, and, whether we look to the delights or the difficul- 
ties of knowledge, we cannot fail to perceive, that this mental appe- 
tency in man, and its counterpart objects in Nature, are suited with 
marvellous exactness to each other. 

5. But the analogy between the mental and the corporeal affec- 
tions does not stop here. The appetite of hunger would, of itself, 
impel to the use of food — although no additional pleasure had been 
annexed to the use of it, in the gratifications of the palate. The 
sense of taste, with its various pleasurable sensations, has ever been 
regarded, as a distinct proof of the benevolence and care of God. 
And the same is true of the delights which are felt by the mind, in 
the acquisition of knowledge — as when truth discloses her high and 
hidden beauties to the eye of the enraptured student ; and he breathes 
an ethereal satisfaction, having in it the very substance of enjoy- 
ment, though the world at large cannot sympathise with it. The 
pleasures of the intellect, though calm, are intense : insomuch, that 
a life of deep philosophy were a life of deep emotion, when the un- 
derstanding receives of its own proper aliment — having found its 
way to those harmonies of principle, those goodly classifications of 
phenomena, which the disciples of science love to gaze upon. And 
|he whole charm does not lie in the ultimate discovery. There is a 
felt triumph in the march, and along the footsteps of the demonstra- 
tion which leads to it ; and in the successive evolutions of the rea- 
soning, as well as its successful conclusion. Like every other enter- 
prise of man, there is a happiness in the current and continuous 
pursuit, as well as in the final attainment — as every student in geo- 
metry can tell, who will remember, not only the delight ho fell on 
his arrival at the landing-place, but the delight he felt when guided 
onward by the traces and concatenations of the pathway. Even in 
the remotest abstractions of contemplative truth, there is a glory 



INTELLECT AND THE EMOTIONS. 225 

and a transcendental pleasure, which the world knoweth not; but 
which becomes more intelligible, because more embodied, when the 
attention of the inquirer is directed to the realities of the substantive 
nature. And though there be few who comprehend or follow New- 
ton in his gigantic walk, yet all may participate in his triumphant 
feeling, when he reached the lofty summit, where the whole mys- 
tery and magnificence of Nature stood submitted to his gaze — an 
eminence won by him through the power and the patience of intel- 
lect alone ; but from which he descried a scene more glorious far 
than imagination could have formed, or than ever had been pictured 
and set forth, in the sublimest visions of poetry. 

6. It is thus that while the love of beauty, operating upon the sus- 
ceptible imagination of the theorist, is one of those seducing influ- 
ences, which lead men astray from the pursuit of experimental 
truth — he, in fact, who at the outset resists her fascinations, because 
of his supreme respect for the lessons of observation, is at length 
repaid by the discoveries and sights of a surpassing loveliness. The 
inductive philosophy began its career, by a renunciation, painful we 
have no doubt at first to many of its disciples, of all the systems and 
harmonies of the schoolmen. But in the assiduous prosecution of 
its labours it worked its way to a far nobler and more magnificent 
harmony at the last — to the real system of the universe more excel- 
lent than all the schemes of human conception — not in the solidity 
of its evidence alone, but as an object of tasteful contemplation. 
The self-denial which is laid upon us by Bacon's philosophy, like all 
other self-denial whether in the cause of truth or virtue, hath its re- 
ward. In giving ourselves up to its guidance, we have often to quit 
the fascinations of beautiful theory ; but in exchange for these, are 
at length regaled by the higher and substantial beauties of actual 
nature. There is a stubbornness in facts before which the specious 
ingenuity is compelled to give way ; and perhaps the mind never 
suffers more painful laceration, than when, after having vainly at- 
tempted to force nature into a compliance with her own splendid 
generalizations, she, on the appearance of some rebellious and im- 
practicable phenomenon, has to practise a force upon herself, when 
she thus finds the goodly speculation superseded by the homely and 
unwelcome experience. It seemed at the outset a cruel sacrifice, 
when the world of speculation, with all its manageable and engag- 
ing simplicities had to be abandoned ; and, on becoming the pupils 
of observation, we, amid the varieties of the actual world around us, 
felt as if bewildered, if not lost among the perplexities of a chaos. 
This was the period of greatest sufferance, but it has had a glorious 
termination. In return for the assiduity wherewith the study of na- 
ture hath been prosecuted, she hath made a more abundant reve- 
lation of her charms. Order hath arisen out of confusion ; and, in 
the ascertained structure of the universe, there are now found to be 
a state and a sublimity, beyond all that ever was pictured by the 



226 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE 

mind, in the days of her adventurous and unfettered imagination. 
Even viewed in the light of a noble and engaging spectacle for the 
fancy to dwell upon, who would ever think of comparing with the 
system of Newton, either that celestial machinery of Des Cartes, 
which was impelled by whirlpools of ether, or that still more cum- 
brous machinery of cycles and epicycles which was the progeny of 
a remoter age! It is thus that after a commencement of this ob- 
servational process, there is an abjuration of beauty. But it soon 
reappears in another form, and brightens as we advance; and there 
at length arises, on solid foundation, a fairer and a goodlier system, 
than ever floated in airy romance before the eye of genius.* Nor 
is it difficult to perceive the reason of this. What we discover by 
observation, is the product of the divine imagination — bodied forth 
by creative power, into a stable and enduring universe. What we 
devise by our own ingenuity is but the product of human imagina- 
tion. The one is the solid archetype of those conceptions which 
are in the mind of God. The other is the shadowy representation 
of those conceptions which are in the mind of man. It is even as 
with the labourer, who, by excavating the rubbish which hides and 
besets some noble architecture, does more for the gratification of 
our taste, than if, with his unpractised hand, he should attempt to 
regale us by plans and sketches of his own. And so the drudgery 
of experimental science, in exchange for that beauty, whose fasci- 
nations it resisted at the outset of its career, has evolved a surpassing 
beauty from among the realities of truth and nature. The pain of the 
initial sacrifice is nobly compensated at the last. The views con- 
templated through the medium of observation, are found, not only to 
have a justness in them, but to have a grace and a grandeur in them, 
far above all the visions which are contemplated through the me- 
dium of fancy, or which ever regaled the fondest enthusiast in the 
enraptured walks of speculation and poetry. But the toils of investi- 
gation must be endured first, that the grace and the grandeur might 
be enjoyed afterwards. The same is true of science in all its de- 
partments, not of simple and sublime astronomy alone, but through- 
out of terrestrial physics ; and most of all in chemistry, where the 
internal processes of actual and ascertained Nature are found to 
possess a beauty, which far surpasses the crude though specious 
plausibilities of other days. We perceive in this too, a fine adapta- 

* In the " Essays of John Sheppard," — a work very recently published, and alike 
characterised by the depth of its Christian intelligence and feeling, and the beauty 
of its thoughts — there occurs- the following passage, founded on the Manuscript 
Notes taken by the author, of Play fair's Lectures. "It was impressively stated in 
a preliminary lecture by a late eminent Scotch Professor of Natural Philosophy', 
that the actual physical wonders of creation far transcend the boldest and most 
hyperbolical imaginings of poetic minds;' 'that the reason of Newton and Gallileo 
took a Bublimer night than the fancy of Milton and Ariosto. 1 That this is quite 

true 1 need only refer you to a few astronomical facts glanced at in Mibscipicnt 
pages of this volume in order to evince." Shcppard's Essays, p. 69. 



INTELLECT AND THE EMOTIONS. 227 

tion of the external world to the faculties of man ; a happy ordina- 
tion of Nature by which the labour of the spirit is made to precede 
the luxury of the spirit, or every disciple of science must strenuously 
labour in the investigation of its truths, ere he can luxuriate in the 
contemplation of its beauties. It is by the patient seeking of truth 
first, that the pleasures of taste and imagination are superadded to 
him. For, in these days of stern and philosophic hardihood, nothing 
but evidence, strict and scrutinized and thoroughly sifted evidence, 
will secure acceptance for any opinion. Whatever its authority, 
whatever its engaging likelihood may be, it must first be made to 
undergo the freest treatment from human eyes and human hands. 
It is at one time stretched on the rack of an experiment. At another 
it has to pass through fiery trials in the bottom of a crucible. At 
another, it has to undergo a long questionary process among the 
fumes, and the filtrations, and the intense heat of a laboratory ; and, 
not till it has been subjected to all this inquisitorial torture and sur- 
vived it, is it preferred to a place in the temple of truth, or admitted 
among the laws and the lessons of a sound philosophy. 

7. But, beside those rewards and excitements to science which 
lie in science itself, as the curiosity which impels to the prosecution 
of it, and the delights of prosperous study, and the pleasures that 
immediately spring from the contemplation of its objects — besides 
these, there is a remoter but not less powerful influence, and to which 
indeed we owe greatly more than half the philosophy of our world. 
We mean the respect in which high intellectual endowments are held 
by general society. We are not sure but that the love of fame has 
been of more powerful operation, in speeding onward the march of 
discovery, than the love of philosophy for the sake of its own inhe- 
rent charms ; and there are thousands of our most distinguished in- 
tellectual labourers, who but for an unexpected harvest of renown, 
would never have entered on the secret and solitary prosecution of 
their arduous walk. We are abundantly sensible, that this appe- 
tency for fame may have helped to vulgarise both the literature and 
science of the country ; that men, capable of the most attic refine- 
ment in the one, may, for the sake of a wider popularity, have de- 
scended to verbiage and the false splendour of a meretricious elo- 
quence ; and that men, capable of the deepest research and purest 
demonstration in the other, may, by the same unworthy compliance 
with the flippancy of the public taste, have exchanged the profound 
argument for the showy and superficial illustration — preferring to 
the homage of the exalted few, the attendance and plaudits of the 
multitude. It is thus, that, when access to the easier and lighter 
parts of knowledge has been suddenly enlarged, the heights of philo- 
sophy may be abandoned for a season — the man who wont to oc- 
cupy there, being tempted to come down from their elevation, and 
hold converse with that increasing host, who have entered within 
the precincts, and now throng the outer courts of the temple. It is 



228 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE 

thus, that at certain t nsition periods, in the intellectual history of 
the species, philosophy may sustain a temporary depression — from 
which when she recovers, we shall combine, with the inestimable 
benefit of a more enlightened commonality, both the glory and the 
substantial benefit of as cultured a literature and as lofty and elabo- 
rate a philosophy as before. And we greatly mistake, if we think, 
that in those minds of nobler and purer ambition, the love of fame is 
extinguished, because they are willing to forego the bustling attend- 
ance and the clamorous applauses of a crowd. They too are in- 
tensely set on praise, but it must be such praise as that of Atticus, 
' the incense of which, though not copious, is exquisite — that precious 
aroma, which fills not the general atmosphere, but by which the few 
and the finer spirits of our race are satisfied. Theirs is not the broad 
day-light of popularity. It is a fame of a higher order, upheld by 
the testimony of the amateurs or the elite in science, and grounded 
on those rare achievements which the public at large can neither 
comprehend nor sympathize with. " They sit on a hill apart," and 
there breathe of an ethereal element, in the calm brightness of an 
upper region, rather than in that glare and gorgeousness by which 
the eye of the multitude is dazzled. It is not the eclat of a bonfire 
for the regaling of a mob, but the enduring though quiet lustre of a 
star. The place which they occupy is aloft in the galaxy of a na- 
tion's literature, where the eyes of the more finely intellectual gaze 
upon them with delight, and the hearts only of such are lighted up in 
reverence and con amore towards them. Theirs is a high though 
hidden praise, flowing in secret course through the savans of a com- 
munity, and felt by every true academic to be his most appropriate 
reward.'* 

8. The emotions of which we have yet spoken stand connected, 
either in the way of cause or of consequence, with the higher efforts 
of the intellect — as the curiosity which prompts to these efforts, and 
the delights attendant on the investigation and discovery of truths 
which reward them ; beside the grateful incense of those praises, 
whether general or select, that are awarded to mental superiority, 
and form perhaps the most powerful incitement to the arduous and 
sustained prosecution of mental labour. But there is a connexion 
of another sort, between the emotions and the intellect, of still higher 
importance — because of the alliance which it establishes hot ween 
the intellectual and the moral departments of our nature. We often 
speak of the pleasure that we receive from one class of the emo- 
tions, as those of taste — of the danger or disagreeableness o( an- 
other, as anger or fear or envy — of the obligation that lies upon us 
to cherish and retain certain other emotions, insomuch that the de- 
signation of virtuous is generally given to them, as gratitude, and 
compassion, and the special love of relatives or country, and in one 

• Use and Abuse of Literary And Ecclesiaatical Endowment!, p. 165 — 166. 



INTELLECT AND THE EMOTIONS. 229 

Word, all the benevolent affections of our nature. Now, however 
obvious when stated, it is not sufficiently adverted to, even when 
studying the philosophy of the subject, and still less in the practical 
government and relation of the heart — that, for the very being of 
each of these specific emotions in the heart, there must a certain ap- 
propriate and counterpart object, whether through the channel of 
sense or of the memory, be present to the thoughts. We can only 
feel the emotion of beauty, in the act of beholding or conceiving a 
beautiful object; an emotion of terror, in the view of some danger 
which menaces us ; an emotion of gratitude, in the recollection of a 
past kindness, or of the benefactor who conferred it. Such then is 
the necessary dependence between perception and feeling, that, with- 
out the one, the other cannot possibly be awakened. Present an 
object to the view of the mind, and the emotion suited to that object, 
whether it be love, or resentment, or terror, or disgust, must conse- 
quently arise ; and with as great sureness, as, on presenting visible 
things of different colour to the eye, the green and red, and yellow 
and blue impress their different and peculiar sensations on the retina. 
It is very obvious, that the sensations owe their being to the exter- 
nal objects, without the presence and the perception of which they 
could not possibly have arisen. And it should be alike obvious, that 
the emotions owe their being to a mental perception, whether by 
sense or by memory, of the objects which are fitted to awaken them. 
Let an object be introduced to the notice of the mind, and its corre- 
lative emotion instantly arises in the heart ; let the object be forgot- 
ten or disappear from the mental view, and the emotion disappears 
along with it. 

9. We deem it no exception to the invariableness of that relation, 
which subsists between an object and its counterpart emotion, that, 
in many instances, a certain given object may be present and in full 
view of the observer, without awakening that sensibility which is 
proper to it. A spectacle of pain does generally, but not always, 
awaken compassion. It would always, we think, if a creature in 
agony were the single object of the mind's contemplation. But the 
person, now in suffering, may be undergoing the chastisement of 
some grievous provocation ; and the emotion is different, because 
the object is really different — an offender who has excited the anger 
of our bosom, and, in the view of whose inflicted sufferings, this in- 
dignant feeling receives its gratification. Or the pain may be in- 
flicted by our own hand on an unoffending animal in the prosecu- 
tion of some cruel experiment. If compassion be wholly unfelt, it 
is not because in this instance the law has been repealed which con- 
nects this emotion with the view of pain ; but it is because the atten- 
tion of the mind to this object is displaced by another object ; even 
the discovery of truth — and so what but for this might have been 
an intense compassion, is overborne by an intenser curiosity. And 
so with all the other emotions. Were danger singly the object of 

20 



230 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE 

the mind's contemplation, fear, we think, would be the universal 
feeling ; but it may be danger connected with the sight or the me- 
naces of an insulting enemy who awakens burning resentment in 
the heart, and when anger rises, fear is gone ; or it may be danger 
shared with fellow-combatants, whose presence and observation 
kindle in the bosom the love of glory and impel to deeds of heroism 
— not because any law which connects, and connects invariably, 
certain emotions with certain objects, is in any instance reversed or 
suspended ; but because, in this conflict and composition of moral 
forces, one emotion displaced another from the feelings, only, how- 
ever, because one object displaced another from the thoughts. Still, 
in every instance, the object is the stepping-stone to the emotion — 
insomuch, that if we want to recall a certain emotion, we must re- 
call to the mind that certain object which awakens it ; if we want 
to cease from the emotion, we must cease from thinking of its ob- 
ject, we must transfer the mind to other objects, or occupy it with 
other thoughts. 

10. This connexion between the percipient faculties of the mind 
and its feelings, reveals to us a connexion between the intellectual 
and the moral departments of our nature. How the one is brought 
instrumentally to bear upon the other will be afterwards explained. 
But meanwhile it is abundantly obvious, that the presence or the 
absence of certain feelings stands connected with the presence or 
the absence of certain thoughts. We can no more break up the 
connexion between the thought of any object that is viewed men- 
tally, and the feeling which it impresses on the heart, than we can 
break up the connexion between the sight of any object that is 
viewed materially, and the sensation which it impresses upon the 
retina. If we look singly and steadfastly to an object of a particu- 
lar colour, as red, there is an organic necessity for the peculiar 
sensation of redness, from which we cannot escape, but by shutting 
our eyes, or turning them away to objects that are differently co- 
loured. If we think singly and steadfastly on any object of a parti- 
cular character, as an injury, there seems an organic necessity also 
for the peculiar emotion of resentment, from which there appears to 
be no other way of escaping, than by stifling the thought, or turn- 
ing the mind away to other objects of contemplation. Now we 
hear both of virtuous emotions and of vicious emotions: and it is of 
capital importance to know how to retain the one and to exclude 
the other — which is by dwelling in thought on the objects that 
awaken the former, and discharging from thought the objects that 
awaken the latter. And so it is by thinking in a certain way that 
wrong sensibilities are avoided, and right sensibilities are upholden. 
It is by keeping up a remembrance of the kindness, that we keep 
up the emotion of gratitude. It is by forgetting the provocation, 
that we cease from the emotion of anger. It is by reflecting on the 
misery of a fellow-ereaturo in its vivid and affecting details, that 



INTELLECT AND THE EMOTIONS. 231 

pity is called forth. It is by meditating on the perfections of the 
Godhead, that we cherish and keep alive our reverence for the 
highest virtue and our love for the highest goodness. In one word, 
thought is at once the harbinger and the sustainer of feeling: and 
this, of itself, forms an important link of communication between the 
intellectual and moral departments of our nature. 

11. We shall not be able to complete our views, either on the 
moral character of the emotions, or their dependence on the perci- 
pient faculties of the mind, until we have established a certain ulte- 
rior principle which comes afterwards into notice. Neither do we 
now expatiate on their uses, of which we have already given suffi- 
cient specimens, in our treatment of the special affections. We 
would only remark at present, on their vast importance to human 
happiness — seeing that a state of mental happiness cannot even be 
so much as imagined without a state of emotion. They are the 
emotions, in fact, and the external affections together, which share 
between them the whole interest, whether pleasurable or painful, of 
human existence. And what a vivid and varied interest that is, 
may be rendered evident, by a mere repetition of those words which 
compose the nomenclature of our feelings — as hope, and fear, and 
grief, and joy, and love diversified into so many separate affections 
towards wealth, fame, power, knowledge, and all the other objects 
of human desire, besides the tasteful and benevolent emotions — 
which altogether keep their unremitting play in the heart, and sus- 
tain or fill up the continuity of our sensible being. It says enough 
for the adaptation of external nature to a mental constitution so 
complexly and variously endowed, that numerous as these suscepti- 
bilities are, the world is crowded with objects, that keep them in 
full and busy occupation. The details of this contemplation are in- 
exhaustible ; and we are not sure but that the general lesson of the 
Divine care or Divine benevolence, which may be founded upon 
these, could be more effectually learned by a close attention of the 
mind upon one specific instance, than by a complete enumeration of 
all the instances, with at the same time only a briefer and slighter 
notice of each of them. 

12. And it would make the lesson all the more impressive, if, 
instead of selecting as our example, an emotion of very exalted cha- 
racter, and of which the influence on human enjoyment stood forth 
in bright daylight to the observation of all, such as the sensibility of 
a heart that was feelingly alive to the calls of benevolence, or feel- 
ingly alive to the beauties of nature — we should take for our case 
some other kind of emotion, so common perhaps as to be ignobly 
familiar, and on which one would scarcely think of constructing 
aught so dignified or so serious as a theological argument. Yet we 
cannot help thinking, that it most emphatically tells us of the teem- 
ing, the profuse benevolence of the Deity — when we reflect on those 
homelier and those every-day sources, out of which, the whole of 



232 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE 

human life, through the successive hours of it, is seasoned with en- 
joyment; and a most agreeable zest is imparted from them, to the 
ordinary occasions of converse and companionship among men. 
When the love of novelty finds in the walks of science the gratifica- 
tion that is suited to it, we can reason gravely on the final cause of 
the emotion, and speak of the purpose of Nature, or rather of the 
Author of Nature, in having instituted such a reward for intellectual 
labour. But we lose sight of all the wisdom and all the goodness 
that are connected with this mental ordination — when the very same 
principle, which, in the lofty and liberal savant, we call the love of 
novelty, becomes, in the plain and ordinary citizen, the love of news. 
Yet in this humbler and commonplace form, it is needless to say, 
how prolific it is of enjoyment — giving an edge as it were to the 
whole of one's conscious existence, and its principal charm to the 
innocent and enlivening gossip of every social party. Perhaps a 
still more effective exemplification may be had in another emotion 
of this class, that which arises from our sense of the ludicrous — 
which so often ministers to the gaiety of man's heart, even when 
alone ; and which, when he congregates with his fellows, is ever and 
anon breaking forth into some humorous conception, that infects 
alike the fancies of all, and finds vent in one common shout of ecs- 
tasy. Like every other emotion, it stands allied with a perception 
as its antecedent, the object of the perception in this instance being 
the conjunction of things that are incongruous with each other — on 
the first discovery or conception of which, the mirth begins to tu- 
multuate in the heart of some one ; and on the first utterance of 
which, it passes with irrepressible sympathy into the hearts of all 
who are around him — whence it obtains the same ready discharge as 
before, in a loud and general effervescence. To perceive how in- 
exhaustible the source of this enjoyment is, we have only to think of 
it in connexion with its cause ; and then try to compute, if we can, 
all the possibilities of wayward deviation, from the sober literalities 
of truth and nature, w T hether in the shape of new imaginations by 
the mind of man, or of new combinations and events in actual his- 
tory. It is thus that the pleasure connected with our sense of the 
ludicrous, forms one of the most current gratifications of human 
life ; nor is it essential that there should be any rare peculiarity of 
mental conformation in order to realize it. We find it the perennial 
source of a sort of gentle and quiet delectation, even to men of the 
most sober temperament, and whose habit is as remote as possible 
from that of fantastic levity, or wild and airy extravagance. When 
acquaintances meet together in the street, and hold colloquy lor a 
few minutes, they may look grave enough, il business or politics or 
some matter of serious intelligence be the theme — yet how seldom 
do they part before some coruscation of playfulness has been struck 
out between them; and the interview, though begun perhaps in sober 
earnest, but seldom passes oil', without some pleasantry or other to 



INTELLECT AND THE EMOTIONS. 233 

enliven it. We should not dwell so long on this part of the human 
constitution, were there not so much of happiness and so much of 
benevolence allied with it — as is obvious indeed from the very 
synonymes, to which the language employed for the expression of 
its various phenomena and feeling has given rise. To what else 
but to the pleasure we have in the ludicrous is it owing, that a ludi- 
crous observation has been termed a pleasantry ; or how but to the 
affinity between happiness and mirth can we ascribe it, that the two 
terms are often employed as equivalent to each other; and whence 
but from the strong connexion which subsists between benevolence 
and humour can it be explained, that a man is said to be in good 
humour, when in a state of placidness and cordiality with all who 
are around him 1 We are aware that there is not a single disposi- 
tion wherewith Nature hath endowed us which may not be perverted 
to evil ; but when we see so much both of human kindness and of 
human enjoyment associated with that exhilaration of heart to which 
this emotion is so constantly giving rise — ministering with such co- 
piousness, both to the smiles of the domestic hearth, and the gaieties 
of festive companionship — we cannot but regard it as the provision 
of an indulgent Father, who hath ordained it as a sweetener or an 
emollient amid the annoyances and the ills which flesh is heir to. 

13. It were difficult to compute the whole effect of this ingredient, 
in alleviating the vexations of life ; but certain it is that the ludi- 
crous is often blended with the annoyances which befall us ; and 
that its operation, in lightening the pressure of what might have 
otherwise been viewed as somewhat in the light of a calamity, is 
far from inconsiderable. This balancing of opposite emotions, sug- 
gested by different parts of the same complex event or object, and 
the effect of the one if a pleasant emotion, in assuaging the painful- 
ness of the other, is not an uncommon phenomenon in the exhibi- 
tions of human feeling. A very obvious specimen of this is afforded 
by an acquaintance in the act of falling. There is no doubt an in- 
congruity between the moment of his walking uprightly, and with 
the full anticipation of getting forward in that attitude to the object 
whither he is bending — and the next moment of his floundering in 
the mud, and hastening with all his might to gather himself up again. 
They who philosophize upon the laws of succession in the events of 
Nature, have a great demand for such successions as are immediate. 
They go busily in quest of the contiguous links, and properly con- 
ceive that if any one hidden step be yet interposed, between the two 
which they regularly observe to follow each other, they have not 
completed the investigation, till that step also have been ascertained. 
It is therefore so far an advantage in regard to the above pheno- 
menon, that there does not appear to be time even for the most 
rapid and fugitive intervention — for only let it occur in the presence 
of lookers on, and, with the speed of lightning, will it be followed 

20* 



234 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE 

up by the instant and obstreperous glee of a whole host of spec- 
tatorship. 

14. But this very exhibition may give rise to a wholly different 
emotion. The provocative to laughter lies in the awkwardness of 
the fall. Let the awkwardness be conceived to abide as it was, and 
this other ingredient to be added, the severity of the fall — that a limb 
is fractured, or that a swoon, a convulsion, or a stream of blood is 
the immediate consequence. In proportion to the hurt that was 
sustained, would be the sympathy of far the greater number of the 
by-standers ; and this might be so heightened by the palpable suffer- 
ings of him to whom the accident has befallen, that the sense of the 
ludicrous might be entirely overborne. 

15. The two provocatives are the awkwardness of the fall and 
its severity. The two emotions are the mirth and the compassion. 
The one of these may so predominate over the other as to leave the 
mind under its entire and single ascendency. A mathematician 
would require the point, at which, by a gradual increase or diminu- 
tion upon either of the two elements, they were mutually neutralized 
— or the transition was made from the one to the other of them. 
In this we may not be able to satisfy him. But all may have been 
sensible of an occasion, when the two were so delicately poised, that 
the mind positively vibrated — so as to make a sort of tremulous and 
intermediate play, between these distinct and nearly opposite emo- 
tions. This is one of those nicer exhibitions of our nature that one 
feels an interest in remarking; and many perhaps may recollect the 
instances, when even some valued friend hath smarted pretty 
seriously, under some odd or ludicrous mishap in which he hath 
been involved, and when they have felt themselves in a state of most 
curious ambiguity, between the pity which they ought to feel, and 
the levity which they were not able to repress. The peculiarities of 
this midway condition are greatly aggravated, if there be so many 
acquaintances who share it among them, and more especially, if 
they meet together and talk over the subject of it — in which case, 
it will be no singular display of our mysterious nature, although the 
visitations of a common sympathy should be found to alternate with 
the high-sounding peals of a most rapturous and uncontrollable 
merriment. 

16. We cannot fail to perceive, in this instance too, how 7 insepara- 
ble the alliance is between perception and feeling. According as 
the mind looks, so is the heart affected. When we look to the 
awkwardness of the mischance, whatever it may be. we become 
gay. When we look to its severity, we become sail. It is instruc- 
tive to observe, with what fidelity the heart follows the mind in this 
process, and how whichever the object is that for the time is regarded 
by the one, it is sure to be responded to by an appropriate emotion 
from the other. 

17. We should not have ventured on these illustrations, but for 



INTELLECT AND THE EMOTIONS. 235 

the lesson which they serve to establish. They prove the extent to 
which a sense of the ludicrous might lighten and divert the painful- 
ness of those serious feelings to which humanity is exposed. It is 
true that much evil may be done, when it puts to flight, as it often 
does, seriousness of principle ; but, on the other hand, there is un- 
questionable good done by it, when it puts to flight, either the 
seriousness of resentment — or the seriousness of suffering. And 
when we think of its frequent and powerful effect, both in softening 
the malignant asperities of debate, and in reconciling us to those 
misadventures and pettier miseries of life, which, if not so alleviated, 
would keep us in a state of continual festerment — we cannot but re- 
gard even this humbler part of the constitution of man, as a palpa- 
ble testimony both to the wisdom and goodness of Him who framed 
us.* 

18. Before quitting this department of the subject, we may advert, 
not to an individual peculiarity, but to the respective characters by 
which two classes of intellect are distinguished, and to the effect 
of their mutual action arid reaction on the progress of opinion in 
the world. 

19. The first of these intellectual tendencies may be seen in those 
who are distinguished by their fond and tenacious adherence to the 
existing philosophy, and by their indisposition to any changes of it. 
They feel it painful to relinquish their wonted and established habits 
of thought — as if the mind were to suffer violence, by having to 
quit its ancient courses, and to unlearn the opinions of other days. 
We have no doubt that the love of repose, the aversion of that 

* " The advantages which we derive from our susceptibility of this species of 
emotion, are, in their immediate influence on the cheerfulness, and therefore on 
the general happiness of society, sufficiently obvious. How many hours would 
pass wearily along, but for those pleasantries of wit, or of easier and less pretend- 
ing gaiety which enliven what would have been dull, and throw many bright 
colours on what would have been gloomy. We are not to estimate these acces- 
sions of pleasure lightly, because they relate to objects that may seem trifling, 
when considered together with those more serious concerns, by which our ambi- 
tion is occupied, and in relation to which, in the success or failure of our various 
projects, we look back on the past months or years of our life as fortunate or un- 
fortunate. If these serious concerns alone were to be regarded, we might often 
have been very unhappy, as in other circumstances we might often have had much 
happiness in the hours and days of years, which terminated at last in the disap- 
pointment of some favourite scheme. It is good to travel with pure and balmy airs, 
and cheerful sunshine, though we should not find, at the end of our journey, the 
friend whom we wished to see ; and the gaieties of social converse, though they 
are not, in our journey of life, what we travel to obtain, are during the continuance 
of our journey at once a freshness which we breathe, and a light that gives every 
object to sparkle to our eye with a radiance that is not its own." Brown's Lectures 
— Lecture 59. But this emotion is allied with benevolence as well as with enjoy- 
ment. There is perhaps not a more welcome topic at the tables of the great, than 
the characteristic peculiarities or oddities of humble life — and we have no doubt 
that along with the amusement which is felt in the cottage anecdotes of a domain, 
there is often awakened by them, a benevolent interest in the well-being of the 
occupiers. 



236 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE 

mental labour which is requisite even for the understanding of a new 
system, or at least for the full comprehension and estimate of its 
proofs — enters largely into this dislike for all novelties of specula- 
tion, into this determined preference for the doctrines in which they 
have been educated — although the associations too of taste and re- 
verence share largely in the result. It is thus that the old are more 
disinclined to changes ; and there is a peculiar reason why schools 
and corporations of learning should make the sturdiest resistance to 
them. It is a formidable thing to make head against that majority 
within the walls of every venerable institute, which each new opi- 
nion has to encounter at the outset ; and more especially, if it tend to 
derange the methods of a university, or unsettle the long established 
practice of its masters. This will explain that inveteracy of long 
possession, which, operating both in many individual minds and in 
the bosom of colleges, gives formation and strength to what may be 
termed the conservative party in science or in the literary common- 
wealth — that party which maintains the largest and most resolute 
contest with all new opinions, and will not give way, till overpow- 
ered by the weight of demonstration, and energy of the public 
voice in their favour. 

20. Opposed to this array of strength on the side of existing prin- 
ciples, we have the incessant operations of what may be termed the 
movement party in science or in the literary commonwealth — some 
of whom are urged onward by the mere love of novelty and 
change ; others by the love of truth ; and very many by a sort of ar- 
dent and definite imagination of yet unreached heights in philosophy, 
and of the new triumphs which await the human mind in its inter- 
minable progress from one brilliant or commanding discovery to 
another. We have often thought that a resulting optimism is the 
actual effect of the play or collision that is constantly kept up be- 
tween these two rival parties in the world of letters. On the one 
hand it is well, that philosophy should not be a fixture, but should at 
length give way, to the accumulating force of evidence. But on 
the other hand it is well, that it should require a certain, and that a 
very considerable force of evidence, ere it shall quit its present 
holds, or resign the position which it now occupies. We had rather 
that it looked with an air of forbidding authority on the mere like- 
lihoods of speculation than that, lightly set agog by every specious 
plausibility, it should open its schools to a restless and rapid succes- 
sion of yet undigested theories. It is possible to hold out too obsti- 
nately and too long; but yet it is well, that a certain balance should 
obtain between the adhesive and the aggressive forces in the world 
of speculation; and that the general mind of society should have at 
least enough of the sedative in its composition, to protect it from 
aught like violent disturbance, or the incursion of any rash adven- 
turer in the field of originality. And for this purpose it is well, 
that each novelty, kept at bay lor a time, and made to undergo a 



INTELLECT AiVD THE EMOTIONS. 237 

sufficient probation, should be compelled, thoroughly to substantiate 
its claims — ere it be permitted to take a place beside the philosophy, 
which is recognised by all the authorities, and received into all the 
institutes of the land. 

21. And they are the very same principles, which, when rightly 
blended, operate so beneficially, not in philosophy alone, but in poli- 
tics. There is no spirit which requires more to be kept in check, 
than that of the mere wantonness of legislation ; and so far from 
being annoyed by that indisposition to change, which is rather the 
characteristic of all established authorities, w r e should regard it in 
the light of a wholesome counteractive, by which to stay the ex- 
cesses of wild and wayward innovators. There is a great purpose 
served in society by that law of nature, in virtue of which it is that 
great bodies move slowly. It would not answer, if a government 
were to veer and to vacillate with every breath of speculation — it 
easily liable to be diverted from the steadfastness of their course, 
by every lure or by every likelihood which sanguine adventurers 
held out to them. It is well, that in the ruling corporation, there 
should be a certain strength of resistance, against which all splendid 
imaginations and all unsound and hollow plausibilities, might spend 
their force and be dissipated ; and, so far from complaining of it as 
an impracticable engine w T hich is so hard and difficult of impulse, we 
should look upon its very unwieldiness in the light of a safeguard, 
without which we should be driven to and fro by every wind of 
doctrine on a troubled sea that never rests. On these accounts we 
feel inclined, that, in the vessel of the body politic, there should be a 
preponderance of ballast over sail ; and that it really is so, we 
might put to the account of that optimism, which, with certain re- 
servations, obtains to a very great degree, in the framework, and 
throughout the whole mechanism of human society. 

22. But this property in the machine of a government to which 
we now advert, does not preclude that steady and sober-minded 
improvement which is all that is desirable. It only restrains the 
advocates of improvement from driving too rapidly. It does not 
stop, it only retards their course, by a certain number of defeats and 
disappointments, which, if their course be indeed a good one, are 
but the stepping stones to their ultimate triumph. Ere that the vic- 
tory is gotten, they must run the gauntlet of many reverses and 
many mortifications; and they are not to expect by one, but by, 
several and successive blows of the catapulta, that inveterate abuses 
and long established practices can possibly be overthrown. It is 
thus, in fact, that every weak cause is thrown back into the nonen- 
tity whence it sprung, and that every cause of inherent goodness or 
worth is ultimately carried — rejected, like the former, at its first and 
earliest overtures ; but, unlike the former, coming back every time 
with a fresh weight of public feeling and public demonstration in 
its favour, till, like the abolition of the slave trade or that of com- 



238 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE 

mercial restrictions, causes which had the arduous struggle of many 
long years to undergo, it at length obtains the conclusive seal upon 
it of the highest authority in the land, and a seal by which the merits 
of the cause are far better authenticated, than if the legislature were 
apt to fluctuate at the sound of every new and seemly proposal. 
We have therefore no quarrel with a certain vis inertia in a legisla- 
ture. Only let it not be an absolute fixture ; and there is the hope, 
with perseverance, of all that is really important or desirable in re- 
formation. The sluggishness that has been ascribed to great cor- 
porations is, in the present instance, a good and desirable property 
— as being the means of separating the chaff from the wheat of all 
those overtures, that pour in upon representatives from every quar- 
ter of the land ; and, so far from any feeling of annoyance at the 
retardation to which the best of them is subjected, it should be 
most patiently and cheerfully acquiesced in, as being in fact the 
process, by which it brightens into prosperity, and at length its worth 
and its excellence are fully manifested. 

23. It is not the necessary effect of this peculiar mechanism, it is 
but the grievous perversion of it, when the corrupt inveteracy has 
withstood improvement so long, that ere it could be carried, the as- 
sailing force had to gather into the momentum of an energy that 
might afterwards prove mischievous, when the obstacle which pro- 
voked it into action had at length been cleared away. It is then that 
the vessel of the state which might have been borne safely and pros- 
perously onward in the course of ages, by a steady breeze and with 
a sufficiency of ballast, as if slipped from her moorings is drifted 
uncontrollably along, and precipitated from change to change with 
the violence of a hurricane. 



CHAPTER III. 

On the Connexion between the Intellect and the Will. 

1. There is distinction made between a mental susceptibility ami 
a mental power. Should we attempt to define it, we might say oi' 
the power, that it implies a reference to something consequent and o( 
the susceptibility that it implies a reference to something antecedent. 
It is thus that a volition is conceived to indicate the former, and an 
emotion to indicate the latter. Anger would be spoken (A rather 
as a susceptibility of the mind than as a power: and a will rather 
as a power than as a susceptibility. We \ iew anger in connexion 

with the provocatives which went before it ; and so regarding it as 
an effect, we conceive of the mind in which this effect has been 



INTELLECT AND THE WILL. 239 

wrought, as being at the time in a state of subject passiveness. We 
view the will in connexion with the deeds which follow on its deter- 
minations; and so regarding it as a cause, we conceive of the mind 
when it wills as being in a state of active efficiency. And yet a 
determination of the will may be viewed not merely as the prior 
term to the act which flows from it, but also as the posterior term to 
the influence which gave it birth — or in other words, either as the 
forthgoing of a power or as the result of a susceptibility. It is thus 
that desire, which on looking backward to the cause from w r hence it 
sprung, we should call a susceptibility — on looking forward to the 
effect which it prompts for the attainment of its object, we should 
call an impellent ; and thus depth of feeling is identical, or at least, 
in immediate contact with decision and intensity of purpose. 

2. But in our intent prosecution of this analysis, and use of those ap- 
propriate terms which are employed for expressing the results of it, we 
have often to desert the common language, and are apt to lose sight 
of certain great and palpable truths, of which that language is the 
ordinary vehicle. When tracing the inter mediate steps, between 
the first exposure of the mind to a seducing influence, and the deed 
or perpetration of enormity into which it is hurried, we are engaged 
in what may properly be termed a physical inquiry — as much so as, 
w T hen passing from cause to consequent, w 7 e are attending to any 
succession or train of phenomena in the material world. But it is 
when thus employed that we are so apt to lose sight of the moral 
character of that which we are contemplating ; and to forget when 
or at what point of the series it is that the designation whether of 
virtuous or vicious, the charge whether of merit or demerit, comes 
to be applicable.* It is well that, amid all the difficulties attendant 

* Dr. Brown has well distinguished between the two inquiries in the following 
sentences. " In one very important respect, however, the inquiries, relating- to the 
physiology of mind, differ from those which relate to the physiology of our animal 
frame. If we could render ourselves acquainted with the intimate structure of our 
bodily organs, and all the changes which take place, in the exercise of their vari- 
ous functions, our labour, with respect to them, might be said to terminate. But 
though our intellectual analysis were perfect, so that we could distinguish, in our 
most complex thought or emotion, its constituent elements, and trace with exact- 
ness the series of simpler thoughts which have progressively given rise to them, 
other inquiries, equally or still more important, would remain. We do not know 
all which is to be known of the mind when we know all its phenomena, as we know 
all which can be known of matter, when we know the appearances which it pre- 
sents, in every situation in which it is possible to place it, and the manner in which 
it then acts or is acted upon by other bodies. When we know that man has cer- 
tain affections and passions, there still remains the great inquiry, as to the propriety 
or impropriety of these passions, and of the conduct to which they lead. We have 
to consider, not only how he is capable of acting, but also, whether, acting in the 
manner supposed, he would be fulfilling a duty or perpetrating a crime. Every 
enjoyment which man can confer on man, and every evil which he can reciprocally 
inflict or suffer, thus become objects of two sciences — first of that intellectual 
analysis which traces the happiness and misery, in their various forms and se- 
quences, as mere phenomena or states of the substance mind; — and secondly, of 
that ethical judgment, which measures our approbation and disapprobation, esti- 



240 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE 

on the physiological inquiry, there should be such a degree of clear- 
ness and uniformity in the moral judgments of men — insomuch that 
the peasant can, with a just and prompt discernment equal to that of 
the philosopher, seize on the real moral characteristics of any action 
submitted to his notice, and pronounce on the merit or demerit of 
him who has performed it. It is in attending to these popular or 
rather universal decisions, that we learn those phenomena which 
are of main importance to our argument — now that, after having 
bestowed a separate attention on the moral and intellectual consti- 
tutions of human nature, we are investigating the connexion which 
is between them. 

3. The first of those popular or rather universal decisions, which 
we shall at present notice, is, that nothing is moral or immoral which 
is not voluntary. A murderer may be conceived, instead of striking 
with the dagger in his own hand, to force it, by an act of refined 
cruelty, into the hand of him, who is the dearest relative or friend of 
his devoted victim ; and, by his superior strength, to compel the 
struggling and the reluctant instrument to its grasp. He may thus 
confine it to the hand, and give impulse to the arm of one, who re- 
coils in utmost horror from that perpetration, of which he has been 
made as it were the material engine ; and could matters be so con- 
trived, as that the real murderer should be invisible, while the arm 
and the hand that inclosed the weapon, and the movements of the 
ostensible one, should alone be patent to the eye of the senses — then 
he and not the other would be held by the by-slander as chargeable 
with the guilt. But so soon as the real nature of the transaction 
came to be understood, this imputation would be wholly and instantly 
transferred. The distinction would at once be recognised between 
the willing agent in this deed of horror and the unwilling instrument. 
There would no more of moral blame be attached to the latter, than 
to the weapon which inflicted the mortal blow ; and on the former 
exclusively, the whole burden of the crime and its condemnation 
would be laid. And the simple difference which gives rise to the 
whole of this moral distinction in the estimate between them, is, that 
with the one the act was with the will; with the other it was 
against it. 

4. The will may be spoken of either as a faculty of the mind. o\\ 
it may denote one separate and individual act of willing. He willed 
to take a walk with me. It was his w r ill so to do. But there is 
another term which is more properly expressive of the act, and is 
not at all expressive of the faculty. Those terms which discriminate, 
and which restrict language to a special meaning, are very conve- 

mating, with more than judicial scrutiny, not merely what is done, but what is 
scarcely thought in secrecy and silence, and discriminating some element of moral 
good or evil, in all the physical good and evil, which it is in OUT feeble power 
to execute, or in our still frailer heart to conceive and desire." Jhoicn's Laiuris, 
Lecture I. 



INTELLECT AND THE WILL. 241 

nient both in science and in common life. The will then may ex- 
press both the faculty and the act of willing. But the act of willing 
has been further expressed by a term appropriated wholly to itself — 
and that is, volition. Mr. Locke defines volition to be " an act of 
the mind, knowingly, exerting that dominion it takes itself to have 
over any part of the man, by employing it in, or withholding it from 
any particular action." And Dr. Reid more briefly, but to the same 
effect, says that it is — " the determination of the mind to do or not 
to do something which we conceive to be in our power." He very 
properly remarks, however, that, after all, determination is only 
another word for volition; and he excuses himself, at the same time, 
from giving any other more logical definition — on the plea, that 
simple acts of the mind do not admit of one. 

5. There is certainly a ground, in the nature and actual workings 
of the mental constitution, for the distinction, which has been ques- 
tioned of late, between will and desire. Desire has been thus defined 
by Locke — " It is the uneasiness man finds in himself, upon the ab- 
sence of any thing, whose present enjoyment carries the idea of de- 
light with it" — an uneasiness which many may remember to have 
felt in their younger days, at the sight of an apple of tempting physi- 
ognomy, that they would fain have laid hold of, but were restrained 
from touching by other considerations. The desire is just the liking 
that one has for the apple ; and by its effectual solicitations, it may 
gain over the will to its side — in which case, through the medium 
of a volition, the apple is laid hold of, and turned to its natural appli- 
cation. But the will may, and often does, refuse its consent; and 
we then better perceive the distinction between the desire and the 
will, when we thus see them in a state of opposition — or when the 
urgency of the desire is met by other urgencies, which restrain the 
indulgence of it. One might be conceived, as having the greatest ap- 
petency for the fruit, and yet knowing it to be injurious to his health 
— so that however strong his desires, his will keeps its ground against 
their solicitations. Or he may wish to reserve it for one of his in- 
fant children ; and so his will sides with the second desire against 
the first, and carries this latter one into execution. Or he may re- 
flect, after all, that the apple is not his own property, or that perhaps 
he could not pull it from among the golden crowds and clusters 
around it, without injury to the tree upon which it is hanging; and 
so he is led by the sense of justice to keep both the one and the other 
desire at obeyance — and the object of temptation remains untouched, 
just because the will combats the desire instead of complying with 
it, and refuses to issue that mandate, or in other words, to put forth 
that volition, which would instantly be followed up by an act and an 
accomplishment. And thus, however good the tree is for food, and 
however pleasant to the eyes, and however much to be desired, so 
as to make one taste and be satisfied — yet, if strong enough in all 

21 



242 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE 

these determinations of prudence or principle, he may look on the 
fruit thereof and not eat. 

6. Dr. Brown and others would say, that there is nothing in this 
process, but the contest of opposite desires and the prevalence of the 
strongest one — and so identify will and desire with each other.* But 
though a volition should be the sure result of a desire, that is no more 
reason why they should be identified, than why the prior term of any 
series in nature should be identified or confounded, with any of its 
posterior terms, whether more or less remote. In the process that 
we have been describing, there were different desires in play, but 
there were not different volitions in play. There was one volition 
appended to the strongest desire ; but the other desires though felt 
by the mind, and therefore in actual being, had no volitions appended 
to them — proving that a desire may exist separately from the voli- 
tion that is proper to it, and that therefore the two are separate and 
distinct from each other. The truth is, using Dr. Brown's own lan- 
guage, the mind is in a differeut state when framing a volition, from 
what it is when feeling a desire. When feeling a desire, the mind 
has respect to the object desired — which object, then in view of the 
mind, is acting with its own peculiar influence on a mental suscepti- 
bility. When framing a volition the mind has respect, not properly 
to the object, but to the act by which it shall attain the object — and 
so is said to be putting forth a mental power. j- But whether this 
distinction be accurately expressed or not, certain it is, the mind is 
differently conditioned, when in but a state of simple desire — from 
what it is when in the act of conceiving a volition. It is engaged 
with different things, and looking different ways — in the one case to 
the antecedent object which has excited the desire, in the other case 
to the posterior act on which the will has determined for the attain- 
ment of the object. The palsied man who cannot stretch forth his 

* Edwards, at the outset of his treatise on the Will, controverts Locke ; but in 
such a way as reduces the difference between them very much to a question of no- 
menclature. On the one hand, the difference between a volition and a desire does 
not affect the main doctrine of Jonathan Edwards; for, though volitions be distinct 
from desires, they may nevertheless be the strict and unvarying- results of them. 
Even Edwards himself seems to admit, that the mind has a different object in 
willing from what it has in desiring — an act of our own being the object of the 
one ; the thing desired being the object of the other. It serves to mark more 
strikingly the distinction between willing and desiring, when even an act of our 
own is the proper object of each of them. There may be a great desire to inflict 
a blow on an offender; but this desire, restrained by considerations of prudence or 
principle, may not pass into a volition. Edwards would say that even here (he vo- 
litiondoes not run counter to the desire, but only marks the prevalence of the 
stronger desire over the weaker one. Now this is true ; but without at all oblite- 
rating the distinction for which we content!. The volition does run counter to the 
weaker desire, though under the impulse of the stronger, and there are three dis- 
tinct mental phenomena in this instance, the stronger desire, the weaker desire and 
the volition, which ought no more to he confounded, than any movement with the 
motive forces that gave rise to it, or than the posterior with the prior term of any 
sequence. 

| Sec Art. 1. of this chapter. 



INTELLECT AND THE WILL. 243 

hand to the apple that is placed in the distance before him, may, 
nevertheless, long after it ; and in him we perceive desire singly — 
for he is restrained by very helplessness from putting forth a volition, 
the proper object of which is some action of our own, and that we 
know to be in our own power. We accept with great pleasure of 
that simplification by Dr. Brown, in virtue of which we regard the 
mind not as a congeries of different faculties, but as, itself one and 
indivisible, having the capacity of passing into different states ; and 
without conceiving any distinction of faculties, we only affirm that 
it is in a different state when it wills, from that in which it is when 
it simply desires. Notwithstanding the high authority both of Dr. 
Brown and Mr. Mill, we think that in confounding these two, they 
have fallen into an erroneous simplification; and we abide by the 
distinction of Dugald Stewart and the older writers upon this subject* 
7. But the point of deepest interest is that step of the process, at 
w r hich the character of right or wrong comes to be applicable. It 
is not at that point, when the appetites or affections of our nature 
solicit from the will a particular movement; neither is it at that 
point, when either a rational self love or a sense of duty remon- 
strates against it. It is not at that point when the consent of the 

* Hume says very well of desire, that — " It arises from good considered simply 
and aversion from evil. The will again exerts itself, when either the presence of 
the good or absence of the evil may be attained by any action of the mind or 
body." This is the definition of Hume, and it is a very good one. And it tallies 
with the sensible remark of Dr. Reid, that the object of every volition is some 
action of our own. And upon this he founds some very, clear illustrations of the dif- 
ference that there is between a desire and a volition. " A man desires that his 
children may be happy, and that they may behave well. Their being happy is no 
action at all; and their behaving well is not his action but theirs." "A man athirst 
has a stong desire to drink; but for some particular reason he determines not to 
gratify his desire." Here the man has the desire but not the will. In other cases 
he may have the will but not the desire. " A man for health may take a nauseous 
drug, for which he has no desire, but a great aversion." Desire, therefore, is not 
will; but only one of the incitements that often leads to it — though it may at all 
times be and actually sometimes is withstood. It is, however, because desire is 
so often accompanied by will, that we are apt to overlook the distinction between 
them. 

I may here observe that to frame a volition is sometimes expressed more shortly 
by the phrase, to will. I will put forth my hand, is different from, I desire to put 
it forth. There may be reasons why I should restrain the desire — so that though I 
desire it, I may not will it. For this application of the verb to will, we have the 
authority of the best English writers. " Whoever," says Dr. South, " wills the 
doing of a thing, if the doing of it be in his power, he will certainly do it; and 
whoever does not do the thing which he has in his power to do, does not properly 
will it." And Locke says, "the man that sits still is said to be at liberty, because 
he can walk if he wills it." Dr. South makes a happy discrimination, which 
serves to throw light upon the precise nature of a volition as opposed to other 
things that may or may not lead to a volition — when he says, " that there is as much 
difference between the approbation of the judgment and the actual volition of the 
will, as between a man's viewing a desirable thing, and reaching after it with his 
hand." He further says of a wish, which is nought but a longing desire, that 
— M a wish is properly the desire of a man who is sitting or lying still; but an act 
of the will is a man of business vigorously going about his work." 



244 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE 

will is pleaded for, on the one side or other — but all-important to be 
borne in mind, it is at that point when the consent is given. When 
we characterise a court at law for some one of its deeds — it is not 
upon the urgency of the argument on one side of the question, or 
of the reply upon the other, that we found our estimate ; but wholly 
upon the decision of the bench, which decision is carried into effect 
by a certain order given out to the officers who execute it. And 
so, in characterising an individual for some one of his doings, we 
found our estimate, not upon the desires of appetite that may have 
instigated him on the one hand, or upon the dictates of conscience 
that may have withstood these upon the other — not upon the elements 
that conflicted in the struggle, but on the determination that put an 
end to it — even that determination of the will, which is carried into ef- 
fect by those volitions, on the issuing of which, the hands, and the feet, 
and the other instruments of action are put into instant subserviency. 
8. To prove how essentially linked together, the morality of any 
act is with its wilfulness, it is of no consequence, whether the voli- 
tion that gave rise to the act, be the one which preceded it imme- 
diately as its proximate cause, or be a remote and anterior volition 
— in which latter case, it is termed a purpose, conceived at some 
period which may have long gone by, but which was kept un- 
alterable till the opportunity for its execution came round.* There 
may be an interval of time, between that resolution of the will 
which is effective, and that performance by which it is carried into 
effect. One may resolve to-day, with full consent and purpose of 
the will, on some criminal enterprise for to-morrow. It is to-day 
that he has become the criminal, and has incurred a guilt to which 
even the performance of the morrow may bring no addition and no 
enhancement. The performance of to-morrow does not constitute 
the guilt, but only indicates it. It may prove what before the 
execution of the will was still an uncertainty. It may prove the 
strength of that determination which has been already taken — how 
it can stand its ground through all the hours which intervene be- 
tween the desire and its fulfilment; how meanwhile the visitations 
of reflection and remorse have been kept at a distance, or all been 
disregarded ; how with relentless depravity, the purpose lias been 
adhered to, and the remonstrances of conscience or perhaps the en- 
treaties of virtuous friendship have all been set at nought : how. 
with a hardihood that could brave alike the disgrace and the con- 
demnation which attach to moral worthlessness, he could proceed 
with unfaltering step from the reprobate design to its full and final 
accomplishment — nor suffer all the suggestions of his leisure ami 

• It is true that if the desire were to cease for the object to be attained by the 
proposed act, the purpose would cense along with it, but it were confounding the 

thing's which in reality are distinct from each Other, to represent on this account 
the desire and the purpose :»s synonymous. The one respects the object that is 
wished for; the other respects the action, by which the object is to be attained. 



INTELLECT AND THE WILL. 245 

solitude, however affecting the thought of that innocence which he 
is now on the eve of forfeiting, or a tenderness for those relatives 
who are to be deeply wounded by the tidings of his fall, or the au- 
thority of a father's parting advice, or the remembrance of a mo- 
ther's prayers, to stay his hand. 

9. That an action then be the rightful object, either of moral cen- 
sure, or approval, it must have had the consent of the will to go 
along with it. It must be the fruit of a volition — else it is utterly 
beyond the scope, either of praise for its virtuousness or of blame 
for its criminality. If an action be involuntary, it is as unfit a sub- 
ject for any moral reckoning, as are the pulsations of the wrist. 
Something ludicrous might occur, which all of a sudden sets one 
irresistibly on the action of laughing ; or a tale of distress might be 
told, which, whether he wills or not, forces from him the tears of 
sympathy, and sets him as irresistibly on the action of weeping ; or, 
on the appearance of a ferocious animal, he might struggle with all 
his power for a serene and manly firmness, yet struggle in vain 
against the action of trembling ; or if instead of a formidable a 
loathsome animal was presented to his notice, he might no more 
help the action of a violent recoil perhaps antipathy against it, than 
he can help any of the organic necessities of that constitution which 
has been given to him ; or even upon the observation of what is 
disgusting in the habit or countenance of a fellow man, he may be 
overpowered into a sudden and sensitive aversion ; and lastly, should 
some gross and grievous transgression against the decencies of 
civilized life be practised before him, he might no more be able to 
stop that rush of blood to the complexion which marks the inward 
workings of an outraged and offended delicacy, than he is able to 
alter or suspend the law of its circulation. In each of these cases 
the action is involuntary ; and precisely because it is so, the epithet 
neither of morally good nor of morally eVil can be applied to it. And 
so of every action that comes thus to speak of its own accord ; and 
not at the will or bidding of the agent. It may be painful to him- 
self. It may also be painful to others. But if it have not had the 
consent of his will, even that consent without which no action that 
is done can be called voluntary, it is his misfortune and not his 
choice ; and though not indifferent in regard to its consequences on 
the happiness of man, yet, merely because disjoined from the will, 
it in point of moral estimation is an act of the purest indifference. 

10. How then, it may be asked, can any moral character be 
affixed to an emotion, which seems to be an organic or pathological 
phenomenon, wherewith the will may have little, perhaps nothing to 
do. Nothing we have affirmed is either virtuous or vicious, unless 
the voluntary in some way intermingles with it ; and how then shall 
we vindicate the moral rank which is commonly assigned to the 
mere susceptibilities of our nature ? We regard compassion as a 
virtuous sensibility; and we regard malignity, or licentiousness, or 

21* 



246 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE 

envy, as so many depraved affections ; and yet, on our principle, 
they are virtuous or vicious, only in so far as they are wilful. It 
is clearly at the bidding of his will, that a man acts with his hand, 
and therefore we are at no loss to hold him responsible for his 
doings ; but we must learn how it is at the bidding of his will that 
he feels with his heart, ere we can hold him responsible for his de- 
sires. If apart from the will, there be neither moral worth nor 
moral worthlessness — if it be implied in the very notion of desert 
that the will has had some concern in that which we thus cha- 
racterise — if neither actions nor affections are, without volitions, 
susceptible of any moral reckoning — it may require some considera- 
tion to perceive, how far the element of moral worth is at all im- 
plicated in an emotion. If the emotions of sympathy be as much 
the result of an organic framework as the emotions of taste, and 
if this be true of all the emotions — it remains to be seen, why either 
praise or censure should be awarded to any of them. Whether an 
emotion of taste arises within me at the sight of beauty, or an emo- 
tion of pity at the sight of distress — the mind may have been as 
passive, or there may have been as much of the strictly pathological 
in the one emotion as in the other. v 

11. Now it may be very true, that the will has as little to do with 
that pathological law, by which the sight of distress awakens in my 
bosom an emotion of pity, as with that other pathological law by 
which the sight of a red object impresses on my retina the sensa- 
tion peculiar to that colour. Yet the will, though not the proximate, 
may have been the remote and so the real cause, both of the emo- 
tion and sensation notwithstanding. It may have been at the bid- 
ding of my will, that, instead of hiding myself, from my own flesh, 
I visited a scene of wretchedness, and entered within the confines as 
it were of that pathological influence, in virtue of which, after that 
the spectacle of suffering was seen the compassion was unavoida- 
ble. And it is also at the bidding of my will, that I place myself 
within view of an object of sense ; that I direct my eye towards it, 
and keep it open to that sensation, which, after the circumstances 
that I have voluntarily realized, is equally unavoidable. I might 
have escaped from the emotion, had I so willed, by keeping aloof 
from the spectacle which awakened it. And I might escape from 
the sensation, if I so will, by shutting my eyes, or turning them 
away from the object which is its cause; or, in other words, by the 
command which I have over the looking faculty that belongs to mo. 
And perhaps the mind has a looking faculty as woll as the body, in 
virtue of which, as by the one objects are either removed from, or 
made present to the sight, so by the other, objects may ho either re- 
moved from, or made present to the thoughts. Could wo ascertain 
the existenoc and operations of such a faculty, this would explain 
how it is, that the emotions are subordinated not Immediately but 

mediately to the will — that the mind by the direction o\ its looking 
faculty towards the counterpart objects, could, on the one hand. 



INTELLECT AND THE WILL. 247 

will these emotions into being ; or by the direction of it away from 
these objects, could, on the other hand, will them again into extinc- 
tion. Such we hold to be the faculty of attention. It forms the 
great link between the intellectual and moral departments of our na- 
ture ; or between the percipient and what has already been named 
the pathematic departments. It is the control which the will has 
over this faculty that makes man responsible for the objects which 
he chooses to entertain, and so responsible for the emotions which 
pathologically result from them. 

12. If it be by a voluntary act that he comes to see certain objects, 
then, whatever the emotions are which are awakened by these objects, 
he may be said to have willed them into being. In like manner, if 
it be by a voluntary act that he comes to think of certain objects, 
then, may it also be said, that he wills all the emotions which follow 
in their train. It is admitted on all hands, that, by the power which 
the will has over the muscles of the human frame, it can either 
summon into presence or bid away certain objects of sight. And, 
notwithstanding the effect which the expositions of certain meta- 
physical reasoners have had, in obscuring the process, it is also 
admitted, almost universally, that, by the power which the will has 
over the thinking processes, it can either summon into presence or 
bid away certain objects of thought. The faculty of attention we 
regard as the great instrument for the achievement of this — the 
ligament which binds the one department of our constitution to the 
other — the messenger, to whose wakefulness and activity we owe 
all those influences, which pass and repass in constant succession 
between our moral and intellectual nature. 

13. Dr. Reid, in his book on the active powers, has a most im- 
portant chapter on those operations of the mind that are called volun- 
tary. Among these, he gives a foremost place to attention — where, 
instead however of any profound or careful analysis, he presents us 
with a number of very sensible remarks ; and from the undoubted 
part which the will has in the guidance and exercise of this faculty, 
he comes to the sound conclusion, that a great part of wisdom and 
virtue consists in giving the proper direction to it. 

14. Dugald Steward ranks attention among the intellectual facul- 
ties ; — and seems to regard it as an original power, which had very 
much escaped the notice of former observers. But Dr. Brown w r e 
hold to have been far the most successful in his expositions of this 
faculty ; and by which he makes it evident, that it is not more dis- 
tinct from the mental perception of any object of thought, than the 
faculty of looking to any object of sight, is distinct from the faculty 
of seeing it. 

15. In his chapter on the external affections combined with desire, 
he institutes a beautiful analysis; in the conduct of which, he has 
thrown the magic tints of poetry over a process of very abstract but 
conclusive reasoning. We fear, that, in this age of superficial readers, 



248 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE 

the public are far from being adequately aware of that wondrous 
combination of talent, which this singularly gifted individual realized 
in his own person ; and with what facility, yet elegance, he could 
intersperse the graces of fancy, among the demonstrations of a most 
profound and original metaphysics. The passage to which we now 
refer, is perhaps the finest exemplification of this in all his volumes ; 
and though we can hardly hope, that the majority, even of the well 
educated, will ever be tempted to embark on his adventurous specu- 
lations — yet many, we doubt not, have been led by the fascination of 
his minor accomplishments, to brave the depths and the difficulties 
of that masterly course which he has given to the world. For 
among the steeps and the arduous elevations of that high walk 
which he has taken, he kindly provides the reader with many a 
resting place — some enchanted spot, over which the hand of taste 
hath thrown her choicest decorations ; or where, after the fatigues 
and the triumphs of successful intellect, the traveller may from the 
eminence that he has won, look abroad on some sweet or noble per- 
spective, which the great master whose footsteps he follows hath 
thrown open to his gaze. It is thus that there is a constant relief 
and refreshment afforded along that ascending way, which but for 
this would be most severely intellectual ; and if never was philosophy 
more abstruse, yet never was it seasoned so exquisitely, or spread 
over a page so rich in all those attic delicacies of the imagination 
and the style which could make the study of it attractive. 

16. There is a philosophy not more solid or more sublime of 
achievement than his, but of sterner frame — that would spurn " the 
fairy dreams of sacred fountains and elysian groves and vales of 
bliss." For these he ever had most benignant toleration, and him- 
self sported among the creations of poetic genius. We are aware 
of nought more fascinating, than the kindness and complacency, 
wherewith philosophy, in some of the finer spirits of our race, can 
make her graceful descent into an humbler but lovelier region than her 
own — when " the intellectual power bends from his awful throne a 
willing ear and smiles." 

17. " If," says Dr. Brown, " Nature has given us 'the power of 
seeing many objects at once, she has given us also the faculty of 
looking but to one — that is to say of directing our eyes on one only 
of the multitude ;" and again, " there are some 'objects which are 
more striking than others, and which of themselves almost call us to 
look at them. They are the predominant objects around which 
others seem to arrange themselves." 

18. The difference between seeing a thing and looking at it, is 
tantamount to the difference which there is, between the mere pre- 
sence of a thought in one's mind and the mind's attention to that 
which is the object of thought Now the look, according to Or. 
Brown's analysis, is made up of the simple external affection ol sight, 
and a desire to know more about some one o( the things which we 



INTELLECT AND THE WILL. 249 

do see. We think it the natural consequence of the error into which 
he has fallen, of confounding the desire with the will, that he has 
failed in giving a complete or continuous enough description of the 
process of attention — for, without any violence to the order of his 
own very peculiar contemplations, he might have gone on to say, as 
the effect of this mixed perception and desire on the part of the ob- 
server, that he willed to look to the object in question ; and he might 
have spoken of the volition which fastened his eye and his attention 
upon it. Both he and Mr. Mill seem averse to the intervention of the 
will in this exercise at all — the one finding room only for desire ; 
and the other for his processes of association, ascribing attention to 
the mere occurrence of interesting sensations or ideas in the train. 
Now if this question is to be decided by observation at all, or by con- 
sciousness which is the faculty of internal observation, the mental 
states of desiring and willing seem just as distinguishable as any 
other mental states whatever. At the time when the mind desires, 
it bears a respect towards the desirable object ; at the time when it 
wills, it bears a respect towards something different from this, to that 
act of its own which is put forth for the purpose of attaining the ob- 
ject. The desire that is felt towards the object is specifically a dis- 
tinct thing, from the volition which prompts or precedes the action. 
The desire may have caused the volition ; but this is no reason why 
it should be confounded with the volition. And in like manner, a 
feeling of interest in an idea, or rather in the object of an idea, is 
quite distinguishable from that volition which respects a something 
different from this object — which respects an act or exercise of the 
mind, even the attention that w 7 e shall give to it. The interest that 
is felt in any object of thought may have been the cause, and the 
sole cause of the attention which we give to it. But the necessary 
connexion which obtains between the parts of a process, is no reason 
why we should overlook any part, or confound the different parts 
with each other. In this instance, Mr. Hume seems to have observed 
more accurately than either of the philosophers whom we have now 
named, when he discriminates between the will and the desire, and 
tells us of the former, that it exerts itself when the thing desired is to 
be attained by any action of the mind or body. A volition is as dis- 
tinctly felt in the mental as in the bodily process — although it be in 
the latter only, that the will first acts on some one of the muscles as 
its instrument, and issues in a visible movement as its required ser- 
vice. The power of the will over an intellectual process is marked 
by the difference, the palpable difference which there is, between a 
regulated train of thought and a passive reverie. And there is no- 
thing in the intervention of the will to contravene, or even to modify 
the general laws of association. Neither does the wish to recover a 
particular idea, involve in it the incongruity of that idea being both 
present with and absent from the mind at the same time. We may 
not have an idea that is absent, and yet have the knowledge of its 



250 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE 

being related to some other idea that is present ; and we therefore at- 
tend to this latter idea and dwell upon it, for the purpose, as is well ex- 
pressed by Mr. Mill, of — " giving it the opportunity of exciting all 
the ideas with which it is associated ; for by not attending to it, we 
deprive it more or less of that opportunity." It is therefore, as he 
elsewhere expresses it, that we detain certain ideas and suffer others 
to pass. But there is nothing inconsistent with the laws or pheno- 
mena of association, in our saying of this act of detention that it is a 
voluntary act — that we detain certain ideas, because we will to de- 
tain them.*' 

19. It is this which virtuejies emotion, even though there be no- 
thing virtuous which is not voluntary. It is true that once the idea 
of an object is in the mind, its counterpart emotion may, by an organic 
or pathological law, have come unbidden into the heart. The emo- 
tion may have come unbidden ; but the idea may not have come un- 
bidden. By an act of the will, it may, in the way now explained, 
have been summoned at the first into the mind's presence ; and at all 
events it is by a continuous act of the will that it is detained and dwelt 
upon. The will is not in contact with the emotion, but it is in con- 
tact with the idea of that object which awakens the emotion — and 
therefore, although not in contact with the emotion, it may be vested 
with an effectual control over it. It cannot bid compassion into the 
bosom, apart from the object which awakens it ; but it can bid a 
personal entry into the house of mourning, and then the compassion 
will flow apace ; or it can bid a mental conception of the bereaved 
and afflicted family there, and then the sensibility will equally arise, 
whether a suffering be seen or a suffering be thought of. In like man- 
ner, it cannot bid in the breast the naked unaccompanied feeling of 
gratitude; but it can call to recollection, and keep in recollection the 
kindness which prompts it — and the emotion follows in faithful attend- 
ance on its counterpart object. It is thus that we can will the right 
emotions into being, not immediately but mediately — as the love of 
God, by thinking on God — a sentiment of friendship, by dwelling in 
contemplation on the congenial qualities of our friend — the admira- 
tion of moral excellence, by means of a serious and steadfast attention 
to it. It is thus too that we bid away the wrong emotions, not sepa- 
rately and in disjunction from their objects, for the pathological law 
which unites objects with emotion we cannot break asunder. But we 
rid our heart of the emotions, by ridding our mind of their exciting 
and originating thoughts ; of anger, for example, by forgetting the 
injury; or of a licentious instigation, by dismissing from our fancy 
the licentious image, or turning <>ur sighl and our eyes from viewing 
vanity. It is this command of the 1 will over the attention, which. 
transmuting the intellectual into the moral, makes duties o\' licedful- 
ness and consideration — and duties too of prime importance, l-ccausc 1 

* Sec the Chapter on the Will i n Mill's Analysis of the human mind. 



INTELLECT AND THE WILL. 251 

of the place which attention occupies in the mental system, as the 
great ligament between the percipient and pathematic parts of our 
nature. It is by its means that the will is made to touch at least the 
springs of emotion — if it do not touch the emotions themselves. The 
will tells on the sensibilities, through an intermediate machinery 
which has been placed at its disposal ; and thus it is, that the culture 
or regulation of the heart is mainly dependent on the regulation of 
the thoughts. 

20. We may thus be enabled to explain, and perhaps more clearly 
than before, the force and inveteracy of habit ; and that, not by the 
power of emotions to suggest emotions, but purely by the power of 
thoughts to suggest thoughts. In this process, the motions will of 
course intermingle with their own counterpart thoughts ; and both 
ideas and feelings will succeed each other in their customary trains 
all the more surely, the oftener it has been suffered to pass unbroken 
by any intervention of the will, any remonstrance from the voice of 
conscience. It is in this way that the wretched voluptuary, becomes 
every year the more helpless victim of his own depraved inclinations 
— because more and more lorded over by those foul imaginations, 
which are lighted up to him, from almost every object he sees or 
thinks of; and which now, he scarcely has the power, because he 
never had the honest or sustained will to bid away. That may truly 
be called a moral chastisement under which he suffers. The more 
he has sinned, the more helpless is the necessity under which he lies 
of sinning — a bondage strengthened by every act of indulgence, till 
he may become the irrecoverable slave of those passions which war 
against the principles of a better and higher nature. And he is do- 
mineered over by passions, because domineered over by thoughts ; 
and it is only by the force of mastery of counteracting thoughts, that 
the spell is broken — or, in other words, it is through an intellectual 
medium, that the moral distemper is cleared away. If he be res- 
cued from his delusions to sobriety and virtue, ideas will be the step- 
ping-stones of his returning path — the sirens that will recall him to 
himself, by chasing away the fascinations wherewith he is encom- 
passed. Could the percipient part of his nature be set right, the 
pathological part would become whole. He would yet behave him- 
self aright, did he only bethink himself aright ; and noble recoveries 
have been effected, even from most deep and hopeless infatuation, 
simply by the power of thoughts — when made to dwell on the dis- 
tress of friends, the poverty and despair of children, the ruin of health 
as well as fortune, the displeasure of an angry God, the horrors of an 
unprovided death-bed or an undone eternity.* 

* A strict confinement to our assigned objects has hitherto prevented any allusion 
to Christianity, from which indeed we purposely abstain, till we approach more 
nearly towards the conclusion of this essay. Still we may here remark how strik- 
ingly accordant the philosophy of our nature is with the lessons of the Gospel in 
regard to the reciprocal acting of its moral and intellectual parts on each other — 



252 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE 

21. Actions are voluntary in themselves, in that the mind can will 
them directly into being. Emotions, though not voluntary in them- 
selves, are so far voluntary in their proximate or immediate causes 
— in that the mind, to a certain extent, and by the control which it 
has over the faculty of attention, can will those ideas into its pre- 
sence by which its emotions are awakened. It is well that a man is 
thus vested, not only with a control over his actions; but also in a 
great degree with a control over his emotions, these powerful impel- 
lents to action — and it required an exquisite fitting of the intellectual 
to the moral in man's mental system, ere such a mechanism could 
be framed. But we not only behold in the relation between the will 
and the emotions, a skilful adaptation in the parts of the human con- 
stitution to each other ; we also behold a general and manifold adap- 
tation to this peculiarity in the various objects of external nature. 
Man can, by means of these objects, either kindle the right emotions 
in his bosom, or make his escape from those emotions that trouble 
and annoy him. By an entry into an abode of destitution, he can 
effectually soften his heart ; by an entry into an abode of still deeper 
suffering, where are to be found the dead or the dying, he can ef- 
fectually solemnize it. But a still more palpable use of that indefi- 
nite number of objects wherewith the world is so filled and variegated, 
is, that by creating an incessant diversion of the thoughts from such 
objects as are of malignant influence, it may rid the inner man of 
the grief, or the anger, or the wayward licentiousness of feeling, 
which might otherwise have lorded over him; and to the urgent 
calls of business or duty or amusement, do we owe such lengthened 
periods of exemption both from the emotions that pain, and from the 
emotions that would vitiate and deprave us. 

22. But there is another application, of at least as high import- 
ance, to which this peculiarity of our mental structure is subservient 
By the command which the will has over the attention, we become 
responsible, not only for our states of emotion, but also in a great 
degree for our intellectual states. The imagination that there is 
neither moral worth nor moral delinquency in the state of a man's 
belief, proceeds on the voluntary having had no share in the pro- 
cess which leads to it. Now through the intermedium of the very 
same faculty, the faculty of attention, the will stands related to the 
ultimate convictions of the understanding, precisely as it stands re- 
lated to the ultimate emotions of the heart. It is true that as the ob- 
ject in view of the mind is, so the motion is. — And it is as true that as 
the evidence in view of the mind is, so the belief is. In neither case 

and that not merely in wliat Scripture enjoins on the management of temptations ; 
hut in its frequent affirmation, as a general and reigning principle of the power 
which its objective doctrines have in transforming the subjective mind which re- 
ceives tlicin — exemplified in such phrases, as "being sanctified by the truth." aiul 
"keeping our hearts in the love of God, by building ourselves up on our most holy 
faith." 



INTELLECT AND THE WILL. 253 

has the will to do with the concluding sequence ; but in both cases it 
has equally to do with the sequences that went before it. There may 
be a pathological necessity beyond our control, in that final step of the 
succession, which connects the object that is perceived with its coun- 
terpart emotion, or the evidence that is perceived with its counter- 
part belief. But in like manner as it is by the attention, which we 
might or might not have exercised, that the object is perceived by 
us, so is it by the attention, which w T e might or might not have ex- 
ercised, that the evidence is perceived by us. It is thus that on in- 
numerable questions, and these of vital importance, both to the pre- 
sent well-being and the future prospects of humanity, the moral may 
have had casual antecedency over the intellectual ; and the state of 
a man's creed may depend on the prior state of his character. We 
have already seen how a present compassion may have been the 
result of a previous choice; and so may a present conviction be the 
result of a previous choice — being in proportion not to the evidence 
possessed by the subject, but to the evidence attended to, and per- 
ceived in consequence of that attention. The designations of vir- 
tuous and vicious are only applicable to that which is voluntary ; 
and it is precisely because, through the faculty of attention, the vo- 
luntary has had so much to do, if not immediately with the belief, at 
least with the investigations which lead to it — that man may be 
reckoned with for the judgments of his understanding, as well as for 
the emotions of his heart or the actions of his history. 

23. That man is not rightfully the subject of any moral reckoning 
for his belief, would appear then, to be as monstrous a heresy in 
science as it is in theology, as philosophically unsound as it is reli- 
giously unsound; and deriving all its plausibility from the imagination, 
that the belief is in no way dependent upon the will. It is not morally 
incumbent upon man to see an object, which is placed beyond the 
sphere of his vision — nor can either a rightful condemnation or a 
rightful vengeance be laid upon him, because he has not perceived it. 
It must lie within that sphere, else he is no more responsible for not 
having reached it with his eye than for not having stretched forth 
his hand to any of the distant bodies in the firmament. It must be 
within range of his seeing ; and then the only question which needs 
to be resolved is, what the will has to do with the seeing of it. Now 
to see is not properly an act of the will, but to look is altogether so ; 
and it is the dependence of his looking faculty on the will, which 
makes man responsible for what he sees or what he does not see, in 
reference to* all those objects of sight, that are placed within the 
territory of sensible vision. And if there be but a looking faculty 
in the mind, man may be alike responsible for what he believes or 
what he does not believe, in reference, not to sensible objects alone, 
but to those truths which are placed within the territory of his 
intellectual or mental vision. Now attention is even such a faculty. 
Man can turn and transfer, it at pleasure from one to another topic 

22 



254 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE 

of contemplation. He can take cognisance of any visible thing, 
in virtue of the power which he has over the eye of his body — a 
power not to alter the laws of vision, but to bring the organ of vision 
within the operation of these laws. And he can take cognisance of 
any announced truth, in virtue of the power he has over his attention 
which is his mental eye — a power, not to alter the laws of evidence, 
but to bring the organ of the intellect within their operation. Atten- 
tion is the looking organ of the mind — the link of communication 
between man's moral and man's intellectual nature — the messenger, 
as it were, by which the interchange between these two departments 
is carried on — a messenger too at the bidding of the will, which saith 
to it at one time go and it goeth, at another come and it cometh, and 
at a third do this and it doeth it. It is thus that man becomes di- 
rectly responsible for the conclusions of his understanding — for these 
conclusions depend altogether, not on the evidence which exists but 
on that portion of the evidence which is attended to. He is not to 
be reckoned with, either for the lack or the sufficiency of the exis- 
tent evidence ; but he might most justly be reckoned with, for the 
lack or the sufficiency of his attention. It is not for him to create 
the light of day ; but it is for him both to open and to present his 
eye to all its manifestations. Neither is it for him to fetch down to 
earth the light of the upper sanctuary. But if it be indeed true that 
that light hath come into the world, then it is for him to guide the 
eye of his understanding towards it. There is a voluntary part for 
him to perform ; and thenceforward the question is involved with 
most obvious moralities. The thing is now submitted to his choice. 
He may have the light if he only love the light ; and if he do not, 
then are his love of darkness and the evil of his doing, the unques- 
tionable grounds of his most clear and emphatic condemnation. 

24. And this principle is of force, throughout all the stages in the 
process of the inquiry — from the very first glance of that which is 
the subject of it, to the full and finished conviction in which the in- 
quiry terminates. At the commencement of the process, we may 
see nothing but the likelihoods of a subject — not the conclusive 
proofs, but only as yet the dim and dawning probabilities of the 
question — nothing which is imperative upon our belief, and yet 
everything which is imperative upon our attention. There may be 
as great a moral perversity in resisting that call, which the mere 
semblance of truth makes upon our further attention — as in resisting 
that call, which the broad and perfect manifestation of it makes 
upon our conviction. In the practice of Scottish law, there is a 
distinction made between the precognition and tin 1 proof — carried 
into effect in England by the respective functions of the grand and 
petty jury ; it being the office of the former to find a true hill, or to 
decide whether the matter in question should ho brought to a further 
trial; and it being the office of the latter to make that trial, and to 
pronounce the final verdict thereupon. Now what we affirm is. 



INTELLECT AND THE WILL. 255 

that there might be to the full as grievous a delinquency in the 
former act of judgment as in the latter ; in the denial of a further 
hearing to the cause after the strong probabilities which have tran- 
spired at the one stage, as in the denial of a fair verdict after the 
strong and satisfactory proofs which have transpired at the other. 
All the equities of rectitude may be as much traversed or violated, 
at the initial or progressive steps of such an inquiry, as by the 
ultimate judgment which forms the termination of it. To resist a 
good and valid precognition, and so to refuse the trial, is a moral 
unfairness of the very same kind, with that resistance of a good 
and valid proof which leads to the utterance of a false verdict. He 
were an iniquitous judge, who should internally stifle the impression 
of those verities, which now brightened forth upon him, at the close 
of his investigation. But he also were an iniquitous judge, who 
should stifle the impression of those verisimilitudes, that even but 
obscurely and languidly beamed upon him at the outset. 

25. Now, in all the processes of the human intellect, there is a 
similar gradation silently yet substantially carried forward. There 
is first an aspect of probability, which constitutes no claim upon our 
immediate belief, but which at least constitutes a most rightful claim 
upon our attention, a faculty, as we before said, at the bidding of 
our will, and for the exercise of which we are therefore responsible 
— seeing that whenever there is a rightful claim upon our attention, 
and the attention is not given, it is wrongously withheld. But we 
know that the effect of this faculty, is to brighten every object of 
contemplation to which it is directed, gradually to evolve into 
greater clearness all its lineaments, and lastly to impress the right 
conviction upon the understanding. In other words, the man, on 
such an occasion as this, is intellectually right, but just because he 
is morally right. He becomes sound in faith ; but only in virtue of 
having become sound in principle. The true belief in which he 
ultimately lands, is not all at once forced upon him, by the cre- 
dentials wherewith it was associated ; but he had the patience and 
the candour to wait the unrolling of these credentials ; or rather he 
helped to unrol them with his own hand. He fastened his regards 
upon some proposition which involved in it the interests or the 
obligations of humanity ; because there sat upon it, even at the first, 
a certain creditable aspect, which had he had the hardihood to with- 
stand or to turn from, it would have made him chargeable, not with 
a mental alone, but with a moral perversity — not with the error that 
springs from a mistaken judgment, but with the guilt that springs 
from the violation of an incumbent duty. Many are the truths 
which do not carry an instant and overpowering evidence along 
with them ; and which therefore, at their first announcement, are 
not entitled to demand admittance for themselves as the articles of a 
creed. Nevertheless they may be entitled to a hearing; and, by 
the refusal of that hearing, man incurs, not the misfortune of an in- 
voluntary blunder, but the turpitude of a voluntary crime. 



256 



CHAPTER IV. 

On the Defects and the Uses of Natural Theology. 

1. We behold in the influence which the will has over the intel- 
lectual states, the same adaptations which we did in the influence of 
the will over the emotions. In the first place, it is well that the will 
should have a certain overruling power over the conclusions of the 
understanding — seeing that if emotions supply the great impellent 
forces ; doctrines, or the truths which are believed, supply the great 
principles of action. And secondly, there is a striking adaptation, 
in this part of our constitution, to the things and the objects which 
be around us. For although there be much of truth, having that 
sort of immediate and resistless evidence, which forces itself upon 
our convictions whether we will or not — there is also much, and 
that too practically the most momentous, of which we can only 
attain the conviction and the knowledge, by a lengthened, often a 
laborious process of inquiry. In like manner as of material objects, 
they may be seen but imperfectly at the first ; and we become fully 
and minutely acquainted with their visible properties, only by a pro- 
longed look, which is a sustained and voluntary act — so, many are 
the objects of thought, both the reality and the nature of which, are 
but dimly apprehended on the first suggestion of them ; and of 
which, we can only be made firmly to believe and thoroughly to 
know, by means of a prolonged attention, which is a sustained and 
voluntary act also. It is thus that the moral state determines the in- 
tellectual — for it is by the exercise of a strong and continuous will, 
upholding or perpetuating the attention, that what at the outset were 
the probabilities of a subject are at length brightened into its proofs, 
and the verisimilitudes of our regardful notice become the verities 
of our confirmed faith. 

2. Of all the subjects to which the attention of the human mind 
can be directed, this principle admits of pre-eminent application to 
the subject of theology — as involving in it, both the present duties 
and the final destinies of our race. In no other track of inquiry, are 
the moral and the intellectual more thoroughly blended, — as might 
be evinced by tracing the whole progress, from the first or incipient 
disposition of mind towards the theme, to the devotedness of its con- 
firmed assurance. 

X. doing back then to the very earliest of our mental conceptions 
on this subject, we advert first to the distinction in point of real ami 
logical import, between unbelief and disbelief. The former we ap- 
prehend, to be the furthest amount of the atheistical verdict i^\ the 
question of a God. The atheist does net labour to demonstrate that 



ON THE DEFECTS AND USES OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 257 

there is no God. But he labours to demonstrate that there is no 
adequate proof of there being one. He does not positively affirm 
the position, that God is not ; but he affirms the lack of evidence for 
the position, that God is. His verdict on the doctrine of a God is 
only that it is not proven. It is not that it is disproven. He is but 
an Atheist. He is not an Antitheist. 

4. Now there is one consideration, which affords the inquirer a 
singularly clear and commanding position, at the outset of this great 
question. It is this. We cannot, without a glaring contravention 
to all the principles of the experimental philosophy, recede to a fur- 
ther distance from the doctrine of a God, than to the position of 
simple atheism. We do not need to take our departure from any 
point further back than this, in the region of antitheism ; for that re- 
gion cannot possibly be entered by us but by an act of tremendous 
presumption, which it were premature to denounce as impious, but 
which we have the authority of all modern science for denouncing 
as unphilosophical. To make this palpable, we have only to con- 
trast the two intellectual states, not of theism and atheism, but of 
theism and antitheism — along with the two processes, by which alone, 
we can be logically and legitimately led to them. 

5. To be able to say then that there is a God, we have only to 
look abroad on some definite territory, and point to the vestiges 
that are given of His power and His presence somewhere. To be 
able to say that there is no God, we must walk the whole expanse of 
infinity, and ascertain by observation, that such vestiges are to be 
found nowhere. Grant that no trace of Him can be discerned in 
that quarter of contemplation, which our puny optics have explored 
— does it follow, that, throughout all immensity, a Being with the 
essence and sovereignty of a God is nowhere to be found? Because 
through our loopholes of communication with that small portion of 
external nature which is before us, we have not seen or ascertained 
a God — must we therefore conclude of every unknown and untrod- 
den vastness in this illimitable universe, that no diversity is there. 
Or because, through the brief successions of our little day, these 
heavens have not once broken silence, is it therefore for us to speak 
to all the periods of that eternity which is behind us ; and to say, 
that never hath a God come forth with the unequivocal tokens of 
His existence? Ere we can say that there is a God — we must have 
seen, on that portion of Nature to which we have access, the print 
of His footsteps, or have had direct intimation from Himself; or 
been satisfied by the authentic memorials of His converse with our 
species in other days. But ere we can say that there is no God — 
we must have roamed over all nature, and seen that no mark of a 
Divine footstep was there ; and we must have gotten intimacy with 
every existent spirit in the universe, and learned from each, that 
never did a revelation of the Deity visit him ; and we must have 
searched, not into the records of one solitary planet, but into the 

22* 



258 ON THE DEFECTS AND USES 

archives of all worlds, and thence gathered, that, throughout the 
wide realms of immensity, not one exhibition of a reigning and 
living God ever has been made. Atheism might plead a lack of 
evidence within its own field of observation. But antitheism pro- 
nounces both upon the things which are, and the things which are 
not within that field. It breaks forth and beyond all those limits, 
that have been prescribed to man's excursive spirit, by the sound 
philosophy of experience ; and by a presumption the most tremen- 
dous, even the usurpation of all space and of all time, it affirms that 
there is no God. To make this out, we should need to travel 
abroad over the surrounding universe till we had exhausted it, and 
to search backward through all the hidden recesses of eternity ; to 
traverse in every direction the plains of infinitude, and sweep the 
outskirts of that space which is itself interminable ; and then bring 
back to this little world of ours, the report of a universal blank, 
wherein we had not met with one manifestation or one movement 
of a presiding God. For man not to know of a God, he has only 
to sink beneath the level of our common nature. But to deny him, 
he must be a God himself. He must arrogate the ubiquity and 
omniscience of the Godhead.* 

6. It affords a firm outset to this investigation, that we cannot re- 
cede a greater way from the doctrine to be investigated, than to the 
simple point of ignorance or unbelief. We cannot, without making 
inroad on the soundest principles of evidence, move one step back 
from this, to the region of disbelief. We can figure an inquirer 
taking up his position in midway atheism. But he cannot, without 
defiance to the whole principle and philosophy of evidence, make 
aggression thence on the side of antitheism. There is a clear in- 
tellectual principle, which forbids his proceeding in that direction ; 
and there is another principle equally clear, though not an intellec- 
tual but a moral one, which urges him, if not to move, at least to 
look in the opposite direction. We are not asking him, situated 

* This idea lias been powerfully rendered by Foster in the following- passage ex- 
tracted from one of his essays. — 

" The wonder turns on the great process, by which a man could grow to the im- 
mense intelligence that can know there is no God. What ages and what lights are 
requisite for this attainment ? This intelligence involves the very attributes of 
Divinity, while a God is denied. For unless this man is omnipresent, unless he is 
at this moment in very place in the Universe, he cannot know hut there nay be in 
some place manifestations of a Deity by which even he would be overpowered, 
If he does not absolutely know every agent in the Universe, the one that he does 
not know may be God. If he is not himself the chief agent in the Universe, and 
docs not know what is so, t hat which is so may be Cod. If he is not in absolute 
possession of all the propositions that constitute universal truth, the One which lie 
wants may be that there is a God. If he cannot with certainty assign the eause of 
all that he perceives to exist, that cause may be a God. If he dees net know 

every thing that has been done in the immeasurable ages that are past, some things 
i.,.\ have been done by a God. Tims unless he knows all things, that is, pre- 
cludes another Deity by being one himself, he cannot know that the Being whose 

'.iic..' he rejects, dues not exist. 



OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 259 

where he is, to believe in God. For the time being, we as little 
expect a friendly as we desire a hostile decision upon the question. 
Our only demand for the present is, that he shall entertain the ques- 
tion. And to enforce the demand, we think that an effective appeal 
might be made to his own moral nature. We suppose him still to 
be an atheist, but no more than an atheist — for, in all right Bacon- 
ian logic, the very farthest remove from theism, at which he or any 
man can be placed by the lack of evidence for a God, is at the 
point of simple neutrality. We might well assume this point, as the 
utmost possible extreme of alienation from the doctrine of a Crea- 
tor, to which the mind of a creature can in any circumstances be 
legitimately carried. We cannot move from it, in the direction to- 
wards antitheism, without violence to all that is just in philosophy ; 
and we might therefore commence with inquiring, whether, in this 
lowest state of information and proof upon the question, there can 
be anything assigned, which should lead us to move, or at least to 
look in the opposite direction. 

7. In the utter destitution, for the present, of any argument, or 
even semblance of argument, that a God is — there is, perhaps, a 
certain duteous movement which the mind ought to take, on the bare 
suggestion that a God may be. The certainty of an actual God 
binds over to certain distinct and most undoubted proprieties. But 
so also may the imagination of a possible God — in which case, the 
very idea of a God, even in its most hypothetical form, might lay a 
responsibility, even upon atheists. 

8. To make this palpable, we might imagine a family suffering 
under extreme destitution, and translated all at once into sufficiency 
or affluence by an anonymous donation. Had the benefactor been 
known, the gratitude that were due to him becomes abundantly ob- 
vious ; and in the estimation of every conscience, nothing could 
exceed the turpitude of him, who should regale himself on the 
bounties wherewith he had been enriched, and yet pass unheedingly 
by the giver of them all. Yet does not a proportion of this very 
guilt rest upon him, who knows not the hand that relieved him, yet 
cares not to inquire 1 It does not exonerate him from the burthen 
of all obligation that he knows not the hand which sustains him. 
He incurs a guilt, if he do not want to know. It is enough to con- 
vict him of a great moral delinquency, if he have gladly seized upon 
the liberalities which w 7 ere brought in secret to his door, yet seeks 
not after the quarter whence they have come — willing that the hand 
of the dispenser should remain for ever unknown, and not wanting 
any such disclosures as would lay a distinct claim or obligation upon 
himself. He altogether lives by the bounty of another ; yet would 
rather continue to live without the burthen of those services or ac- 
knowledgments that are due to him. His ignorance of the bene- 
factor might alleviate the charge of ingratitude; but it plainly awa- 
kens the charge again, if he choose to remain in ignorance, and 



260 ON THE DEFECTS AND USES 

would shun the information that might dispel it. In reference then 
to this still undiscovered patron of his family, it is possible for him 
to evince ingratitude ; to make full exhibition of a nature that is 
unmoved by kindness and withholds the moral responses which are 
due to it, that can riot with utmost selfishness and satisfaction upon 
the gifts while in total indifference about the giver — an indifference 
which might be quite as clearly and characteristically shown, by 
the man who seeks not after his unknown friend, as by the man who 
slights him after that he has found him. 

9. It may thus be made to appear, that there is an ethics con- 
nected with theology, which may come into play, anterior to the 
clear view of any of its objects. More especially, we do not need 
to be sure of God, ere we ought to have certain feelings, or at least 
certain aspirations towards him. For this purpose we do not need, 
fully and absolutely to believe that God is. It is enough that our 
minds cannot fully and absolutely acquiesce in the position that God 
is not. To be fit subjects for our present argument, we do not need 
to have explored that territory of nature which is within our reach ; 
and thence gathered, in the traces of a designer's hand the positive 
conclusion that there is a God. It is enough if we have not tra- 
versed, throughout all its directions and in all its extent, the sphere 
of immensity ; and if we have not scaled the mysterious altitudes 
of the eternity that is past ; nor, after having there searched for a 
divinity in vain, have come at length to the positive and the pe- 
remptory conclusion, that there is not a God. In a word, it is quite 
enough, that a man is barely a finite creature, who has not yet put 
forth his faculties on the question whether God is ; neither has yet 
so ranged over all space and all time, as definitely to have ascer- 
tained that God is not — but with whom though in ignorance of all 
proofs, it still remains a possibility that God may be. 

10. Now to this condition, there attaches a most clear and incum- 
bent mortality. It is to go in quest of that unseen benefactor, who. 
for aught I know, has ushered me into existence, and spread so glo- 
rious a panorama around me. It is to probe the secret of my being 
and my birth; and, if possible, to make discovery whether it was 
indeed the hand of a benefactor, that brought me forth from the 
chambers of nonentity, and gave me place and entertainment in 
that glowing territory, which is lighted up with the hopes and the 
happiness of living men. It is thus that the very conception of a 
God throws a responsibility after it; and that duty, solemn and im- 
perative duty, stands associated with the thought of a possible deity. 
as well as with the sight of the present deity, standing in full mani- 
festation before us. Even anterior to all knowledge (>f" God, or 
when that knowledge is in embryo, there is both a path ofirreligion 
and a. path of piety; and thai law which denounces the one and 
gives to the other an approving testimony, may find in him who is 

still in utter darkness about his origin and his end. a tit subject for 



OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 261 

the retributions which she deals in. He cannot be said to have 
borne disregard to the will of that God, whom he has found. But 
his is the guilt of impiety, in that he has borne disregard to the 
knowledge of that God, whom he was bound by every tie of grati- 
tude to seek after — a duty not founded on the proofs that may be 
exhibited for the being of a God, but a duty to which even the most 
slight and slender of presumptions should give rise. And who can 
deny that, antecedent to all close and careful examination of the 
proofs, there are at least many presumptions in behalf of a God, to 
meet the eye of every observer ? Is there any so hardy as to deny, 
that the curious workmanship of his frame may have had a designer 
and an architect, that the ten thousand independent circumstances 
which must be united ere he can have a moment's ease, and the 
failure of any one of which would be agony, may not have met at 
random, but that there may be a skilful and unseen hand to have put 
them together into one wondrous concurrence, and that never ceases 
to uphold it ; that there may be a real and living artist, whose fin- 
gers did frame the economy of actual things, and who hath so 
marvellously suited all that is around us to our senses and our pow- 
ers of gratification 1 Without affirming aught which is positive, 
surely the air that we breathe, and the beautiful light in which we 
expatiate, these elements of sight and sound so exquisitely fitted to 
the organs of the human frame-work, may have been provided by 
one who did benevolently consult in them our special accommoda- 
tion. The graces innumerable that lie widely spread over the face 
of our world, the glorious concave of heaven that is placed over us, 
the grateful variety of seasons that like Nature's shifting panorama 
ever brings new entertainment and delight to the eye of spectators 
— those may, for aught we know, be the emanations of a creative 
mind, that originated our family and devised such a universe for 
their habitation. Regarding these, not as proofs, but in the humble 
light of presumptions for a God, they are truly enough to convict us 
of foulest ingratitude — if we go not forth in quest of a yet unknown, 
but at least possible or likely benefactor. They may not resolve 
the question of a God. But they bring the heaviest reproach on 
our listlessness to the question ; and show that, anterior to our as- 
sured belief in his existence, there lies upon us a most imperious 
obligation to ' stir ourselves up that we may lay hold of Him.' 

11. Such presumptions as these, if not so many demands on the 
belief of man, are at least so many demands upon his attention ; 
and then, for aught he knows, the presumptions on which he ought 
to inquire may be more and more enhanced, till they brighten into 
proofs which ought to convince him. The prima facie evidence for 
a God may not be enough to decide the question ; but it should at 
least decide man to entertain the question. To think upon how 
plight a variation either in man or in external nature, the whole 
difference between physical enjoyment and the most acute and most 



262 ON THE DEFECTS AND USES 

appalling of physical agony may turn ; to think how delicate the 
balance is, and yet how surely and steadfastly it is maintained, so 
as that the vast majority of creatures are not only upheld in com- 
fort, but often may be seen disporting themselves in the redundance 
of gaiety ; to think of the pleasurable sensations wherewith every 
hour is enlivened, and how much the most frequent and familiar oc- 
casions of life are mixed up with happiness ; to think of the food, 
and the recreation, and the study, and the society, and the business, 
each having an appropriate relish of its own, so as in fact to season 
with enjoyment the great bulk of our existence in the world ; to 
think that, instead of living in the midst of grievous and incessant 
annoyance to all our faculties, we should have awoke upon a world 
that so harmonized with the various senses of man, and both gave 
forth such music to his ear and to his eye such manifold loveliness ; 
to think of all these palpable and most precious adaptations — and yet 
to care not, whether in this wide universe there exists a being 
who has had any hand in them — to riot and regale oneself to the 
uttermost in the midst of all this profusion — and yet to send not one 
wishful inquiry after that Benevolence which for aught we know 
may have laid it at our feet — this, however shaded from our view 
the object of the question may be, is, from its very commencement, 
a clear outrage against its ethical proprieties. If that veil of dim 
transparency, which hides the Deity from our immediate perceptions, 
were lifted up ; and we should then spurn from us the manifested 
God — this were direct and glaring impiety. But anterior to the 
lifting of that veil, there may be impiety. It is impiety to be so 
immersed as we are, in the busy objects and gratifications of life ; 
and yet to care not whether there be a great and a good spirit by 
whose kindness it is that life is upholden. It needs not that this 
spirit should reveal himself in characters that force our attention to 
him, ere the guilt of our impiety has begun. But ours is the guilt of 
impiety, in not lifting our attention towards God, in not seeking after 
Him if haply we may find Him. 

12. Man is not to blame, if an atheist, because of the want of 
proof. But he is to blame, if an atheist, because he has shut his 
eyes. He is not to blame, that the evidence for a God has not 
been seen by him, if no such evidence there were within the field 
of his observation. But he is to blame, if the evidence have not 
been seen, because he turned away his attention from it. That 
the question of a God may lie unresolved in his mind, all ho has to 
do, is to refuse a hearing to the question. Ho may abide without 
the conviction of a God, if he so choose. But this his choice is 
matter of condemnation. To resist Cod after that He is known, is 
criminality towards Him; hut to be satisfied that 1 lo should remain 
unkn6wn, is like criminality towards Him. There is a moral per- 
versity of spirit with him who is willing, in the midst o( many ob- 
jects of gratification, that there should not be one object of grati- 



OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 263 

tude. It is thus that, even in the ignorance of God, there may be a 
responsibility towards God. The Discerner of the heart sees, 
whether, for the blessings innumerable wherewith He has strewed 
the path of every man, He be treated, like the unknown benefactor 
who was diligently sought, or like the unknown benefactor who was 
never cared for. In respect, at least of desire after God, the same 
distinction of character may be observed between one man and ano- 
ther — whether God be wrapt in mystery, or stand forth in full deve- 
lopement to our world. Even though a mantle of deepest obscurity 
lay over the question of His existence ; this would not efface the dis- 
tinction, between the piety on the one hand which laboured and 
aspired after Him ; and the impiety upon the other which never 
missed the evidence that it did not care for, and so grovelled in the 
midst of its own sensuality and selfishness. The eye of a heavenly 
witness is upon all these varieties ; and thus, whether it be darkness 
or whether it be dislike which hath caused a people to be ignorant 
of God, there is with him a clear principle of judgment, that He 
can extend even to the outfields of atheism. 

13. It would appear then, that, even in the initial state of the 
human mind on the question of a God, there is an impellent force 
upon the conscience, which man ought to obey, and which he incurs 
guilt by resisting. We do not speak of that light which irradiates 
the termination of the inquirer's path, but of that embryo or rudi- 
mental light which glimmers over the outset of it ; which serves at 
least to indicate the commencement of his way ; and which, for 
aught he knows, may brighten, as he advances onwards, to the 
blaze of a full and finished revelation. At no point of this progress, 
does ' the trumpet give an uncertain sound,' extending, if not to those 
who stand on the ground of Antitheism, (which we have already 
pronounced upon and we trust proved to be madly irrational) — at 
least to those who stand on the ground of Atheism, who, though 
strangers to the conviction, are certainly not strangers to the con- 
ception of a Deity. It is of the utmost practical importance, that 
even these are not beyond the jurisdiction of an obvious principle ; 
and that a right obligatory call can be addressed to men so far back 
on the domain of irreligion and ignorance. It is deeply interesting 
to know, by what sort of moral force, even an atheist ought to be 
evoked from the fastness which he occupies — what are the notices, 
by responding to which, he should come forth with open eyes and 
a willing mind to this high investigation ; and by resisting which, 
he will incur a demerit, whereof a clear moral cognisance might be 
taken, and whereon a righteous moral condemnation might be passed. 
The " fishers of men" should know the uttermost reach of their 
argument; and it is well to understand of religion, that, if she have 
truth and authority at all, there is a voice proceeding from her 
which might be universally heard — so that even the remotest familiies 



264 ON THE DEFECfTS AND USES 

of earth, if not reclaimed by her, are laid by her under sentence of 
righteous reprobation. 

14. On this doctrine of the moral dynamics, which operate and 
are in force, even in our state of profoundest ignorance respecting 
God, there may be grounded three important applications. 

15. The first is that all men, under all the possible varieties of 
illumination, may nevertheless be the fit subjects for a judicial cog- 
nisance. Their theology, seen through the hazy medium of a dull 
and imperfect evidence, may have arisen no higher than to the pass- 
ing suggestion of a God — a mere surmise or rumination about an 
unseen spirit, who tending all their footeteps, was their guardian and 
their guide through the dangers of the pathless wilderness. Now in 
this thought, fugitive though it be, in these uncertain glimpses whether 
of a truth or of a possibility, there is that, to which the elements of 
their moral nature might respond — so that to them, there is not the 
same exemption from all responsibility, which will be granted to the 
man who is sunk in hopeless idiotism, or to the infant of a day old. 
Even with the scanty materials of a heathen creed, a pure or a per- 
verse morality might be grounded thereupon — whether, in those 
longings of a vague and undefined earnestness that arise from him 
who feels in his bosom an affinity for God and godliness ; or, in 
the heedlessness of him, who, careless of an unknown benefactor, 
would have been alike careless, although he had stood revealed to 
his gaze, with as much light and evidence as is to be had in Chris- 
tendom. These differences attest what man is, under the dark 
economy of Paganism ; and so give token to what he would be, 
under the bright economy of a full and finished revelation. It is 
thus that the Searcher of the heart will find out data for a reckoning, 
even among the rudest of nature's children, or among those whose 
spiritual light glimmers most feebly. Even the simple theology of 
the desert can supply the materials of a coming judgment — so that 
the Discerner of the inner man will be at no loss for a principle, on 
which He might clearly and righteously try all the men of all the 
generations that be upon the face of the earth. 

16. The second important bearing of this principle is on the 
subject of religious education. For what is true of a savage is 
true of a child. Its moral may outrun its argumentative light 
Long anterior to the possibility of any sound conviction as to the 
character or existence of a God, it may respond with sound and 
correct feeling to the mere conception of Him. We hold, that, 
on this principle, the practice of early, nay even of infantine religious 
education, may, in opposition to the invectives of Rousseau and 
others, be fully and philosophically vindicated. For the effect of this 
anticipative process is, that, though it do not at once enlighten the 
mind on ihe question of a C,o<\, it. at least, awakens to the question. 
It docs not consummate the process; but, in as tar as the moral 
precedes the intellectual, it makes good the preliminary steps of the 



OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 265 

process — insomuch that, in every Christian land, the youth and the 
manhood are accountable for their belief, because accountable for 
their use or their neglect of that inquiry, by which the belief ought 
to have been determined. They have all from their infancy heard of 
God. Many have been trained to think of Him, amidst a thousand 
associations of reverence. Some, under a roof of piety, have often 
lisped the prayers of early childhood to this unseen Being ; and, in 
the often repeated sound of morning and evening orisons, they have 
become familiar to His name. Even they who have grown up at 
random through the years of a neglected boyhood, are greatly with- 
in the limits of that responsibility for which we plead. They are 
fully possessed if not w-ith the certainty, at least w r ith the idea, of a 
great eternal Sovereign. The very imprecations of profaneness 
may have taught it to them. The very Sabbath they spend in riot 
and blasphemy at least remind them of a God. The worship-bell 
of the church they never enter, conveys to them, if not the truth, at 
least an imagination of the truth, which, if it do not arrest them by 
a sense of obligation, will leave guilt upon their souls — though it be 
guilt against a God who is unknown. 

17. But lastly," we may now perceive what that is, on which a 
teacher of religion finds an introduction for his topic, even into the 
minds of the people in the lowest state both of moral and intellectual 
debasement. They may have not that in them, at the outset of his 
ministrations, which can enable them to decide the question of a 
God; but they have at least that in them, which should summon all 
their faculties to the respectful entertainment of it. They have at 
least such a sense of the divinity, as their consciences will tell, should 
put them on the regards and the inquiries of moral earnestness. This 
is a clear principle which operates at the very commencement of a 
religious course ; and causes the first transition, from the darkness 
and insensibility of alienated nature, to the feelings and attentions of 
seriousness. The truth is, that there is a certain rudimental theology 
everywhere, on which the lessons of a higher theology may be 
grafted — as much as to condemn, if not to awaken the apathy of na- 
ture. What we have already said of the relation in which the father 
of a starving household stands to the giver of an anonymous dona- 
tion, holds true of the relation in which all men stand to the unseen 
or anonymous God. Though in a state of absolute darkness, and 
without one token or clue to a discovery, there is room for the exhi- 
bition of moral differences among men — for even then, all the ele- 
ments of morality might be at work, and all the tests of moral pro- 
priety might be abundantly verified ; and still more, after that cer- 
tain likelihoods had arisen, or some hopeful opening had occured for 
investigating the secret of a God. There is the utmost moral differ- 
ence that can be imagined between the man who would gaze w T ith 
intense scrutiny upon these likelihoods, and the man who either in 
heedlessness or aversion would turn his eyes from them ; between 
the man who would seize upon such an opening and prosecute such 

23 



266 ON THE DEFECTS AND USES 

an investigation to the uttermost, and the man who either retires or 
shrinks from the opportunity of a disclosure that might burthen him 
both with the sense and with the services of some mighty obligation. 

18. And the same moral force which begins this inquiry, also con- 
tinues and sustains it. If there be power in the very conception of 
a God to create and constitute the duty of seeking after Him, this 
power grows and gathers with every footstep of advancement in the 
high investigation. If the thought of a merely possible Deity have 
rightfully awakened a sense of obligation within us to entertain the 
question ; the view of a probable Deity must enhance this feeling, 
and make the claim upon our attention still more urgent and impera- 
tive than at the first. Every new likelihood makes the call louder, 
and the challenge more incumbently binding than before. In pro- 
portion to the light we had attained, would be the criminality of re- 
sisting any further notices or manifestations of that mighty Being 
with whom we had so nearly and so emphatically to do. Under the 
impulse of a right principle, we should follow on to know God — 
till, after having done full justice both to our opportunities and our 
powers, we had made the most of all the available evidence that was 
within our reach, and possessed ourselves of all the knowledge that 
was accessible. i 

19. We can conceive, how, under the influence of these conside- 
i-ations, one should begin and prosecute the study of Natural Theo- 
logy, till he had exhausted it. But an interesting inquiry remains. 
We have already endeavoured to estimate what the proper leadings 
of the mind are, at the commencement and along the progress of the 
study. The remaining question is, what were the proper leadings of 
the mind at the termination of it. 

20. And first it will be seen, on the principles which we have al- 
ready endeavoured to establish, that no alleged defect of evidence in 
Natural Theology can extinguish the use of it — a use which might 
still remain, under every conceivable degree, whether of dimness or 
of distinctness in its views. Even the faint and distant probabilities 
of the subject, may still lay upon us, the duty of careful and strenu- 
ous inquisition ; and that, long anterior to our full acquaintance with 
the certainties of the subject. The verisimilitudes of the question arc 
the signal posts, by following the intimations of which, we are at 
length conducted to the verities of the question. Although Natural 
Theology therefore should fail to illuminate, yet, by a moral force 
upon the attention, it may fully retain the power to impel. Even if 
it should have but some evidence, however slender, this should put 
us at the very least into the attitudes of inquirers ; and the larger 
the evidence, the more earnest and vigilant ought the inquiry to be. 
Thus a great object is practically fulfilled by Natural Theology, li 
gives us to conceive, or to conjecture, or to know so much of God, 
that, if there be a profest message with the likely signatures y\ym\ it 
of having proceeded from Him — though not our duty all at once to 
surrender, it is at least ourbounden duty to investigate. It may not 



OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 267 

yet be entitled to a place in our creed ; but it is at least entitled to a 
place in the threshold of the understanding — where it may wait the 
full and fair examination of its credentials. It may not be easy to 
measure the intensity of Nature's light ; but enough if it be a light, 
that, had we obeyed its intimations, would have guided us onwards 
to larger manifestations of the Deity. If Natural Theology but serve 
thus to fix and direct our inquiries, it may fulfil a most important 
part as the precursor of revelation. It may not be itself the temple ; 
but it does much by leading the way to it. Even at the outset period 
of our thickest ignorance, there is a voice which calls upon us to go 
forth in quest of God. And in proportion as we advance, does the 
voice become more urgent and audible, in calling us onward to fur- 
ther manifestations. It says much for Natural Theology, that it 
begins at the commencement, and carries us forward a part of this 
way; and it has indeed discharged a most important function, if, at 
the point where its guesses or its discoveries terminate, it leaves us 
with as much light, as should make us all awake to the further no- 
tices of a God, or as shall leave our heedlessness wholly inexcusable. 

21. There is a confused imagination with many, that every new 
accession, whether of evidence or of doctrine, made to the Natural, 
tends in so far, to reduce the claims or to depreciate the importance 
of the Christian Theology. The apprehension is, that as the latter 
was designed to supplement the insufficiency of the former — then, the 
more that the arguments of Natural Theology are strengthened, or 
its truths are multiplied ; the more are the lessons of the Christian 
Theology unheeded and uncalled for. It is thus that the discoveries 
of reason are held as superseding, or as casting a shade of insignifi- 
cance, and even of discredit over the discoveries of revelation. 
There is a certain dread or jealousy, with some humble Christians, 
of all that incense which is offered at the shrine of the divinity by 
human science — whose daring incursion on the field of Theology, it 
is thought, will, in very proportion to the brilliancy of its success, 
administer both to the proud independence of the infidel, and to the 
pious alarm of the believer. 

22. But to mitigate this disquietude, it should be recollected, in the 
first place, that, if Christianity have a real and independent evidence 
of being a message from God, it will be all the more humbly and re- 
spectfully deferred to, should a previous natural theology have as- 
sured us of his existence, and thrown the radiance of a clear and satis- 
fying demonstration over the perfections of His character. However 
plausible its credentials may be, we should feel no great interest 
in its statements or its overtures, if we doubted the reality of that 
Being from whom it professes to have come ; and it is precisely in 
as far as we are preoccupied with the conviction of a throne in hea- 
ven, and of a God sitting upon that throne, that we should receive 
what bore the signatures of an embassy from Him with awful re- 
verence. 

23. But there is another consideration still more decisive of the 



288 ON THE DEFECTS AND USES 

place and importance of Christianity, notwithstanding every possible 
achievement by the light of nature. There are many discoveries 
which, so far from alleviating, serve but to enhance the difficulties of 
the question. For example, though science has made known to us the 
magnitude of the universe, it has not thereby advanced one footstep 
towards the secret of God's moral administration ; but has,in fact, re- 
ceded to a greater distance, from this now more hopeless, because 
now more complex and unmanageable problem than before. To 
multiply the data of a question is not always the way to facilitate its 
solution ; but often the way, rather, to make it more inextricable. 
And this is precisely the effect of all the discoveries that can be made 
by natural theology, on that problem which it is the special office of 
Christianity to resolve. With every new argument by which phi- 
losophy enhances the goodness and greatness of the Supreme Being, 
does it deepen still more the guilt and ingratitude of those who have 
revolted against Him. The more emphatically it can demonstrate 
the care and benevolence of God — the more emphatically, along with 
this, does it demonstrate the worthlessness of man. The same light 
which irradiates the perfections of the divine nature, irradiates, with 
more fearful manifestation than ever, the moral disease and deprava- 
tion into which humanity has fallen. Had natural theology been alto- 
gether extinct, and there had been no sense of a law, or lawgiver 
among men, we should have been unconscious of any difficulty to be 
redressed, of any dilemma from which we needed extrication. But the 
theology of nature and conscience tells us of a law ; and in propor- 
tion as it multiplies the claims of the Lawgiver in heaven, does it 
aggravate the criminality of its subjects upon earth. With the re- 
bellious phenomenon of a depraved species before our eyes, even- 
new discovery of God, but deepens the enigma of man's condition in 
time, and of his prospects in eternity; and so makes the louder call 
for that remedial system, which it is the very purpose of Christianity 
to introduce into the world. 

24. We hold that the theology of nature sheds powerful light on 
the being of a God ; and that, even from its unaided demonstrations, 
we can reach a considerable degree of probability, both for His 
moral and natural attributes. But when it undertakes the question 
between God and man, this is what it finds to be impracticable. It 
is here where the main helplessness of nature lies. It is ballled in all 
its attempts to decypher I he state and the prospects of man. viewed in 
the relation of an offending subject to an offended sovereign. In a 
word, its chief obscurity, and which it is wholly unable to disperse, 
is that which rests on the hopes and the destiny of our species. There 
is in it enough of manifestation to awaken the fears of guilt, hut not 
enough again to appease them. It emits, and audibly emits, a note 
of terror; hut in vain do we listen for one authentic word of comfort 
from any of its oracles. It is able to see the danger, hut not the de- 
liverance. It. can excite the forebodings of the human spirit, but 
cannot quell thom — knowing just enough to stir the perplexity, hut 



OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 269 

not enough to set the perplexity at rest. It can state the difficulty, 
but cannot unriddle the difficulty — having just as much knowledge 
as to enunciate the problem, but not so much as might lead to 
the solution of the problem. There must be a measure of light, we 
do allow ; but, like the lurid gleam of a volcano, it is not a light which 
guides, but which bewilders and terrifies. It prompts the question, but 
cannot frame or furnish the reply. Natural theology may see as much 
as shall draw forth the anxious interrogation, " What shall I do to be 
saved '?" The answer to this comes from a higher theology. 

25. These are the grounds on which we would affirm the insuffi- 
ciency of that academic theism, which is sometimes set forth in 
such an aspect of completeness and certainty, as might seem to 
leave a revelation or a gospel wholly uncalled for. Many there are 
who would gloss over the difficulties of the question ; and who in 
the midst of all that undoubted outrage which has been inflicted by 
sinful creatures on the truth and the holiness and the justice of God, 
would, by merging all the attributes of the Divinity into a placid 
and undistinguished tenderness, still keep their resolute hold of hea- 
ven, as at least the splendid imagination, by which to irradiate the 
destinies of our species. It is thus that an airy unsupported ro- 
mance has been held forth as the vehicle, on which to embark all 
the hopes and the hazards of eternity- We would not disguise the 
meagreness of such a system. We would not deliver the lessons of 
natural theology, without telling at the same time of its limits. We 
abjure the cruelty of that sentimentalism, which, to hush the alarms 
of guilty man, would rob the Deity of his perfections, and stamp a 
degrading mockery upon his law. When expounding the arguments 
of natural theology, along with the doctrines which it dimly sha- 
dows forth, we must speak of the difficulties which itself suggests 
but which it cannot dispose of; we must make mention of the ob- 
scurities into which it runs, but which it is unable to dissipate — of 
its unresolved doubts — of the mysteries through which it vainly tries 
to grope its uncertain way — of its weary and fruitless efforts — of 
its unutterable longings. And should, on the one hand, the specula- 
tions of human ingenuity, and on the other, the certainties of a well 
accredited revelation, come forth to illuminate this scene of darkness 
— we must not so idolize the light or the sufficiency of nature, as to 
turn from the firmament's meridian blaze, that we might witness and 
admire the tiny lustre of a glow-worm. 

26. The two positions are perfectly reconcileable — first of the in- 
sufficiency of natural religion ; and secondly, the great actual im- 
portance of it. It is the wise and profound saying of D'Alembert, 
that, "Man has too little sagacity to resolve an infinity of questions, 
which he has yet sagacity enough to make." Now this marks the 
degree, in which natural theology is sagacious — being able, from its 
own resources, to construct a number of cases, which at the same 
time it is not able to reduce. These must be handed up for solu- 
tion to a higher calculus ; and thus it is, that the theology of nature 

23* 



270 ON THE DEFECTS AND USES 

and of the schools, the theology of the ethical class — though most 
unsatisfactory, when treated as a terminating science — is most im- 
portant, and the germ of developements at once precious and de- 
lightful, when treated as a rudimental one. It is a science, not so 
much of dicta as of desiderata ; and, from the way in which these 
are met by the counterpart doctrines of the gospel, the light of a 
powerful and most pleasing evidence is struck out by the compari- 
son between them. It is that species of evidence which arises from 
the adaptation of a mould to its counterpart form ; for there is pre- 
cisely this sort of fitting, in the adjustment which obtains, between the 
questions of the natural and the responses of the supernatural theo- 
logy. For the problem which natural theology cannot resolve, the 
precise difficulty which it is wholly unable to meet or to overcome, is 
the restoration of sinners to acceptance and favour with a God of 
justice. All the resources and expedients of natural theology are 
incompetent for this solution — it being, in fact, the great desideratum 
which it cannot satisfy. Still it performs an important part in mak- 
ing us sensible of the desideratum. It makes known to us our sin ; 
but it cannot make known to us salvation. Let us not overlook 
the importance of that which it does, in its utter helplessness as 
to that which it does not. It puts the question, though it cannot 
answer the question; and nowhere so much as at this turning-point, 
are both the uses and the defects of natural theology so conspicu- 
ously blended. 

27. Natural theology then, however little to be trusted as an in- 
former, yet as an inquirer, or rather as a prompter to inquiry, is of 
inestimable service. It is a high function that she discharges, for 
though not able to satisfy the search she impels to the search. We 
are apt to undervalue, if not to set her aside altogether, when we 
compare her obscure and imperfect notices with the lustre an 1 the 
fulness of revelation. But this -is because we overlook the virtue 
that lies in the probabilities of a subject — a virtue, either, on the 
one hand, to fasten the attention : or, on the other hand, to condemn 
the want of it. This we hold to be the precise office of natural 
theology — and an office too, which she performs, not merely as 
the theology of science among those who listen to her demon- 
strations in the academic hall; but which she also performs with 
powerful and practical effect, as the theology of conscience, though- 
out all the classes of our general population. It is this initial 
work which makes her so useful, we should say so indispensable, 
as a preliminary to the gospel. Natural theology is quite over- 
rated by those who would represent it as the foundation of the 
edifice. It is not that but rather the taper by which we must grope 
our way to the edifice. The stability oi a fabric is not greater 
than the stability of that upon which it rests: ami it were in- 
scribing a. general infirmity to revelation, to set it forth, as lean- 
ing upon natural theism, in the way thai a mathematical doctrine 

leans upon the axioms or first principles of the science. Chris- 



OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 271 

tianitv rests upon its own proper evidence ; and if, instead of this, 
she be made to rest on an antecedent natural religion, she becomes 
weak throughout because weak radically. It is true that in theo- 
logy, the natural goes before the revealed, even as the cry of weak- 
ness or distress goes before the relief to which it aspires, and which 
it is prompted to seek after. It goes before, not synthetically in the 
order of demonstration, but historically in the mind of the inquirer. 
It is not that natural religion is the premises, and Christianity the con- 
clusion ; but it is that natural religion creates an appetite which it 
cannot quell ; and he who is urged thereby* seeks for a rest and a 
satisfaction which he can only obtain in the fulness of the gospel. 
Natural theology has been called the basis of Christianity. It would 
accord better with our own views of the place which it occupies, 
and of the high purpose which it undoubtedly serves — if it were 
called the basis of Christianization. 

28. The most important exemplification of the way in which na- 
tural religion bears upon Christianity, is furnished by the question 
of a sinner's acceptance with God. Natural religion can suggest 
to man the apprehension of his guilt; for however dim her objec- 
tive view of the Deity, there is no such dimness in her ethical notion 
of what is due even to an uncertain God. Without having seriously 
resolved the question, we may stand convicted to our own minds of 
a hardened and habitual carelessness of the question. If our whole 
lives long have been spent in the midst of created things, without 
any serious or sustained effort of our spirits in quest of a Creator — 
if, as our consciences can tell, the whole drift and practical earnest- 
ness of our thoughts are towards the gifts, with but a rare and oc- 
casional anxiety towards the Giver — if the sense of Him touch but 
lightly on our spirits, and we, by our perpetual lapses from the sacred 
to the secular, prove that our gravitation is to earth, and that in 
truth our best-loved element is atheism — if the notices of a God, 
however indistinct wherewith we are surrounded, instead of fasten- 
ing our regards on this high contemplation, do but disturb without 
at all influencing the general tenor of our engagements — these are 
things of which the light of Nature can take cognisance; and 
these are things because of which, and of their felt unworthiness, 
nature is visited by the misgivings both of remorse and of terror. 
She has data enough on which to found the demonstration and the 
sense of her own unworthiness ; and hence a general feeling of in- 
security among all spirits, a secret but strong apprehension that all 
is not right between them and God. 

29. This is not a matter of mere sensitive and popular impression; 
but in strict accordance with the views of a calm and intelligent ju- 
risprudence. It enters into the very essence of our conception of a 
moral government, that it must have sanctions — which could not 
have place, were there either to be no dispensation of rewards and 
punishments; or were the penalties, though denounced with all the 
parade and proclamation of law, to be never executed. It is not 






272 ON THE DEFECTS AND USES 

the lesson of conscience, that God would, under the mere impulse 
of a parental fondness for the creatures whom He had made, let 
down the high state and sovereignty which belong to Him ; or that 
He would forbear the infliction of the penalty, because of any soft 
or timid shrinking from the pain it would give to the objects of His 
displeasure. There is nothing either in history or nature, which, 
countenances such an imagination of the Deity, as that, in the re- 
lentings of mere tenderness, He would stoop to any weak or un- 
worthy compromise with guilt. The actual sufferings of life speak 
loudly and experimentally against the supposition; and when one 
looks to the disease and the agony of spirit, and above all the hide- 
ous and unsparing death, with its painful struggles and gloomy fore- 
bodings, which are spread universally over the face of the earth — 
we cannot but imagine of the God who presides over such an eco- 
nomy, that He is not a being who will falter from the imposition of 
any severity, which might serve the objects of a high administration. 
Else all steadfastness of purpose, and steadfastness of principle were 
fallen from. God would stand forth to the eye of His own creatures, 
a spectacle of outraged dignity. And He of whom we imagine that 
He dwells in an unviolable sanctuary, the august monarch of hea- 
ven and earth — with a law by subjects dishonoured, by the sove- 
reign unrevenged — would possess but the semblance and the mockery 
of a throne. 

30. Such a conception is not only a violence to the apprehensions 
of nature, but is even acknowledged at times by our academic theists, 
as a violence to the sound philosophy of the subject. The most 
striking testimony to this effect is that given by Dr. Adam Smith, on 
the first appearance of his " Theory of Moral Sentiments ;" nor does 
it detract from its interest or its value, that he afterwards suppressed 
it in the subsequent editions of his work. — " All our natural senti- 
ments," he says, " prompt us to believe, that as perfect virtue is sup- 
posed necessarily to appear to the Deity as it does to us, as for its 
own sake and without any further view, the natural and proper ob- 
ject of love and reward, so must vice of hatred and punishment. 
That the gods neither resent nor hurt was the general maxim of all 
the different sects of the ancient, philosophy; and if by resenting, be 
understood that violent and disorderly perturbation which often dis- 
tracts and confounds the human heart ; or if by hurting, be under- 
stood the doing of mischief wantonly, and without regard to pro- 
priety or justice, such weakness is undoubtedly unworthy of the di- 
vine perfection. But if it be meant that vice does not appear to the 
Deity to be for its own sake the objeel of abhorrence and aversion, 
and what for its own sake, it is tit and reasonable should he punished, 
the truth of this maxim can by. no means he so easily admitted. If 
v.o consult our natural sentiments we are apt to tear lest before the 
holiness of God, vice should appear to be more worthy of punish- 
ment, than the weakness and imperfection of human virtue can ever 
seem to be of reward. Man when about to appear before a Being 



OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 273 

of infinite perfection, can feel but little confidence in his own merit, 
or in the imperfect propriety of his own conduct. In the presence 
of his fellow creatures he may often justly elevate himself, and may 
often have reason to think highly of his own character and conduct, 
compared to the still greater imperfection of theirs. But the case is 
quite different, when about to appear before his infinite Creator. To 
such a Being, he can scarcely imagine, that his littleness and weak- 
ness should ever appear to be the proper objects either of esteem or 
of reward. But he can easily conceive how the numberless 
violations of duty, of which he has been guilty, should render 
him the proper object of aversion and punishment; neither can 
he see any reason why the divine indignation should not be let 
loose, without any restraint, upon so vile an insect as he is sensible 
that he himself must appear to be. If he would still hope for happi- 
ness, he is.conscious that he cannot demand it from the justice ; but he 
must entreat it from the mercy of God, Repentance, sorrow, hu- 
miliation, contrition at the thought of his past misconduct, are upon 
this account the sentiments which become him, and seem to be the 
only means which he has left, for appeasing that wrath which he 
knows he has justly provoked. He even distrusts the efficacy of 
all these, and naturally fears lest the wisdom of God should not, like 
the weakness of man, be prevailed upon to spare the crime by the 
most importunate lamentations of the criminal. Some other inter- 
cession, some other sacrifice, some other atonement, he imagines 
must be made for him, beyond what he himself is capable of making, 
before the purity of the divine justice can be reconciled to his manifold 
offences. The doctrines of revelation coincide in every respect with 
these original anticipations of nature ; and as they teach us how little 
we can depend upon the imperfection of our own virtue, so they show 
us at the same time that the most powerful intercession has been 
made, and that the most dreadful atonement has been paid, for our 
manifold transgressions and iniquities." 

31. This interesting passage seems to have been written by its 
author, under a true apprehension of that dilemma in which the world 
is involved. He admits a moral government on the part of God. 
He admits a universal delinquency on the part of man. And his 
feeling is, that the government would be nullified by a mere act of 
indemnity, which rendered no acknowledgment to the justice which 
had been violated, or to the authority of that law which had been 
trampled on. In these circumstances, he casts about as it were for 
an adjustment ; and puts forth a conjectural speculation ; and guesses 
what the provision should be, which, under a new economy, might 
be adopted for repairing a defect, that is evidently beyond all the 
resources of natural theism; and proposes the very expedient of our 
profest revelation, for the resolving of a difficulty which had been 
else impracticable. We deem it a melancholy fact, that this noble 
testimony to the need of a gospel, should have disappeared in the 
posterior editions of his work — revised and corrected as they were 



274 OX THE DEFECTS AXD USES 

by his own hand. It is not for men to sit in the chair of judgment ; 
and never should they feel a greater awe or tenderness upon their 
spirits, than when called to witness or to pronounce upon the aber- 
rations of departed genius. Yet when one compares the passage he 
could at one time have written, with the memoir that, after an inter- 
val of many years, he gave to the world of David Hume, that ablest 
champion of the infidel cause — one fears lest, under the contagion of 
a near and withering intimacy with him, his spirit may have im- 
bibed of the kindred poison ; and he at length have become ashamed, 
of the homage that he once had rendered to the worth and import- 
ance of Christianity. 

32. This notwithstanding remains one of the finest examples of 
the way, in which the Natural bears upon the Christian theology ; 
and of the outgoings, by which, the one conducts to a landing-place 
in the other. We hold that there are many such outgoings : that 
at the uttermost margin of the former there is a felt want, and that 
in accurate counterpart to this, the latter has something to offer in 
precise and perfect adaptation thereto. Now the great error of our 
academic theism, as commonly treated, is that it expresses no 
want ; that it reposes in its own fancied sufficiency ; and all its land- 
ing-places are within itself, and along the uttermost limits of its own 
territory. It is no reproach against our philosophical moralists, that 
they have not stepped beyond the threshold of that peculium, which 
is strictly and appropriately theirs; or not made incursion into 
another department than their own. The legitimate complaint is, 
that, on taking leave of their disciples, they warn them not, of their 
being only yet at the outset or in the prosecution of a journey, instead 
of having reached the termination of it. They in fact take leave 
of them, in the middle of an unprotected highway — when they 
should have reared a finger post of direction to the places which lie 
beyond. The paragraph which we have now extracted, was just 
such a finger post — though taken down, we deeply regret to say, by 
the very hand that had erected it. Our veneration for his name 
must not restrain the observation, that, by this, he undid the best 
service which a professor of moral science can render to humanity. 
Along the confines of its domain, there should be raised, in every 
quarter, the floating signals of distress, that its scholars, instead o( 
being lulled into the imagination that now they may repose as in so 
many secure and splendid dwelling places, should be taughl to re- 
gard them only as towers of observation — whence they have to look 
for their ulterior guidance and their ulterior supplies, to the region 
of a conterminous theology. 

33. There is a difficulty here in the theism oi' nature, within the 
whole compass of which, no solution for it can he found. It will at 
leasl afford a specimen of the way in which the one bears upon the 

other, [fwe State the method of escape from this difficulty that has 

been provided in the theism of Christianity. The great moral pro- 
blem which under the former waits to be resovol. 1- to find accept- 



OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 2iD 

ance in the mercy of God, for those who have braved His justice, 
and done despite to the authority of His law, and that, without any 
compromise of truth or dignity. By the offered solution of the New 
Testament, a channel has been opened up, through a high mediator- 
ship between God and man, for the descent of a grace and a mercy 
the most exuberant on a guilty world ; and through it, the over- 
tures of reconciliation are extended unto all ; and a sceptre of for- 
giveness, but of forgiveness consecrated by the blood of a great 
atonement, has been stretched forth, even to the most polluted and 
worthless outcasts of the human family; and thus the goodness of 
the divinity obtained its fullest vindication, yet not a goodness at the 
expense of justice — for the affront done to an outraged law, has been 
amply repaired by the homage to its authority of an illustrious sufferer, 
w 7 ho took upon himself the burthen of all those penalties which we 
should have borne; and, in the spectacle of whose deep and myste- 
rious sacrifice, God's hatred of moral evil stands forth in most 
impressive demonstration. So that, instead of a conflict or a con- 
cussion between these two essential attributes of His nature, a way 
has been found, by which each is enhanced to the uttermost, and a 
flood of most copious and convincing illustration has been poured 
upon them both. 

34. This specimen will best illustrate of moral philosophy, even 
in its most finished state, that it is not what may be called a termi- 
nating science. It is at best but a science in transitu ; and its lessons 
are those of a preparatory school. It contains but the rudiments of 
a nobler acquirement; and he discharges best the functions of a 
teacher, not who satiates but who excites the appetite, and then 
leaves it wholly unappeased. This arises from the real state and 
bearing of the science, as being a science, not so much of doctrines 
as of desiderata. At most it leaves its scholars in a sort of twilight 
obscurity. And, if a just account is rendered of the subject, there 
will unavoidably be the feeling, that, instead of having reached a 
secure landing-place, we have broken off, as in the middle of an un- 
finished demonstration. 

35. That indeed is a most interesting adjustment between Moral 
Philosophy and the Christian Theology, which is represented to us 
by the unresolved difficulties of the one science, and the reduction 
which is made of these difficulties in the other. We have far the 
most important example of this, in the doctrine of the atonement — 
that sublime mystery, by which the attributes of the divinity have 
all been harmonized ; and the most liberal outlet has been provided 
for mercy to the offender, while still the truth and justice of the Law T - 
giver have been vindicated, and all the securities of His moral 
government are upholden. By the disloyality of our race, the prin- 
ciples of Heaven's jurisprudence are brought to a test of utmost 
delicacy ; for there seems to be no other alternative, than that man 
should perish in overwhelming vengeance, or that God should be- 
come a degraded sovereign. It nullifies the moral government of the 



276 ON THE DEFECTS AND USES OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 

world, if all force and authority be taken from its sanctions ; and it 
is a problem which even " angels desired to look into," how the 
breach could be healed, which had been made by this world's re- 
bellion, and yet the honour of heaven's high Sovereign be untarnished 
by the compromise. The one science lands us in the difficulty ; and 
by the other alone it is, that we are extricated. The one presents 
us with the case ; but, for the solution of it, we must recur to a 
higher calculus, to an instrument of more powerful discovery and 
of fuller revelation. The one starts a question which itself cannot 
untie ; and the other furnishes the satisfactory response to it. The 
desideratum of the former meets with the doctrine of the latter; and 
it is this frequent adjustment, as of a mould to its counterpart die ; it 
is this close and manifold adaptation between the wants of nature 
and the overtures of a profest revelation ; it is this fitting of the 
supernal application to the terrestrial subject upon which it is laid ; 
it is the way, more especially, in which the disruption between hea- 
ven and earth has been restored, and the frightful chasm that sin had 
made on the condition and propects of our species is wholly repaired 
to all who will through the completeness of an offered Saviour; it 
is this mingled harmony of the greater and lesser lights, which gives 
evidence that both have been kindled by the same hand, and that it 
is He who put the candle which glimmers so feebly into my heart. 
it is He also who poured the noonday effulgence of Christianity 
around me. 

36. It were foreign to our prescribed subject to attempt an ex- 
position, in however brief and rapid a sketch, of the credentials of 
Christianity. We only remark, that, amid the lustre and variety of 
its proofs, there is one strikingly analogous, and indeed identical in 
principle, with our own peculiar argument. If in the system of ex- 
ternal nature, w r e can recognise the evidence of God being its au- 
thor, in the adaptations wherewith it teems to the Moral and Intel- 
lectual Constitution of Man — there is room and opportunity for this 
very evidence in the book of an external revelation. What appears 
in the construction of a world might be made to appear as mani- 
festly in the construction of a volume, whose objective truths may 
present as obvious and skilful an accommodation to our mental 
economy, as do the objective things of a created universe. And it 
is not the less favourable, for an indication of its divine original 
that whereas Nature, as being the original system, abounds with 
those fitnesses which harmonize with the mental constitution in a 
state of health — Christianity, as being a restorative system, abounds 
in fitnesses to the same constitution in a state of disease. We are not 
sure but that in the latter, from its very design, wo shall moot with 
siill more delicate and decisive tests of a designer, than have yet boon 
noticed in the former ; and certain it is, thai the wisdom ami goodness 
and even power of a moral architect, may l>oas strikingly evinced in 
the reparation, as in the primary establishment of a. Moral Nature. 

THE END. 



THE BRIDGEWATER TREATISES 

ON THE 

POWER. WISDOM, AND GOODNESS OF GOD, AS MANIFESTED 
IN THE CREATION. 



TREATISE VIII 



CHEMISTRY, METEOROLOGY, AND THE FUNCTION OF DIGESTION 



BY WILLIAM PROUT, M. D. F. R. S. 



Mr t \j-tasx°'^ a ^ 7<*f *gfjwv;a£, -kv.I 'EX10YI02 0EI'A2 tfspi tov xoCuov - 
iSjvaro £uv£~jasv £Vi xoCk g t^ovra Tec syxsxcxfpa'Aiva,. 



HIPPODAMUS HE FELICITATE. 



CHEMISTRY, METEOROLOGY, 



THE FUNCTION OF DIGESTION, 

CONSIDERED V >££- \ T <\0 

WITH REFERENCE TO NATURAL 




WILLIAM PROUT, M.D.F.R.S. 



FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS. 



A NEW EDITION 



PHILADELPHIA: 
CAREY, LEA & BLANCHARD 



1836 



TO 



DAVIES GILBERT, ESQ., 



LATE PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY, 



THIS VOLUM2 



is 



RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED. 



a2 



NOTICE. 



The series of Treatises, of which the present is one, is published under the 
following circumstances : 

The Right Honourable and Reverend Francis Henry, Earl of Bridge- 
water, died in the month of February, 1829 ; and by his last Will and Testa- 
ment, bearing date the 25th of February, 1825, he directed certain Trustees 
therein named to invest in the public funds the sum of Eight thousand pounds 
sterling; this sum, with the accruing dividends thereon, to be held at the dis- 
posal of the President, for the time being, of the Royal Society of London, to 
be paid to the person or persons nominated by him. The Testator further di- 
rected, that the person or persons selected by the said President should be ap- 
pointed to write, print, and publish one thousand copies of a work On the Pow- 
er, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation ; illustrating such 
work by all reasonable arguments, as for instance the variety and formation of God's 
creatures in the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms ,• the effect of digestion, 
and thereby of conversion ; the construction of the hand of man, and an infinite va- 
riety of other arguments,- as also by discoveries ancient and modern, in arts, sciences, 
and the whole extent of literature. He desired, moreover, that the profits arising 
from the sale of the works so published should be paid to the authors of the 
works. 

The late President of the Royal Society, Davies Gilbert, Esq. requested the 
assistance of his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury and of the Bishop of 
London, in determining upon the best mode of carrying into effect the inten- 
tions of the Testator. Acting with their advice, and with the concurrence of a 
nobleman immediately connected with the deceased, Mr. Davies Gilbert ap- 
pointed the following eight gentlemen to write separate Treatises on the differ- 
ent branches of the subject, as here stated : 

THE REV. THOMAS CHALMERS, D. D. 

PROFESSOPv OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. 

ON THE ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL 
CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 



JOHN KIDD, M. D. F. R. S. 

REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 
ON THE ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE PHYSICAL CONDITION OF MAN. 



VJ1I NOTICE. 

THE REV. WILLIAM WHEWELL, M. A. F. R. S. 

FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 

ON ASTRONOMY AND GENERAL PHYSICS CONSIDERED WITH REFERENCE TO NATURAL 

THEOLOGY. 



SIR CHARLES BELL, K. H. F. R. S. L. & E. 

THE HAND I ITS MECHANISM AND VITAL ENDOWMENTS AS EVINCING DESIGN. 



PETER MARK ROGET, M. D. 

FELLOW OF AND SECRETARY TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 
ON ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY. 



THE REV. WILLIAM BUCKLAND, D. D. F. R. S. 

CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH, AND PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 
ON GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. 



THE REV. WILLIAM KIRBY, M. A. F. R. S. 

ON THE HISTORY, HABITS, AND INSTINCTS OF ANIMALS. 



WILLIAM PROUT, M. D. F. R. S. 

ON CHEMISTRY, METEOROLOGY, AND THE FUNCTION OF DIGESTION. 



His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex, President of the Royal Society, 
having desired that no unnecessary delay should take place in the publication 
of the above-mentioned treatises, they will appear at short intervals, as they 
are ready for publication. 



TO THE READER. 



Chemistry has not hitherto been considered in detail with refer- 
ence to Natural Theology : the difficulties, therefore, incidental to a 
first attempt, added to those arising from the nature of Chemistry 
itself as a science, must be the apology of the author for numerous 
imperfections in this treatise. 

The peculiar chemical opinions advanced, would never have ap- 
peared in their present form ; had not the author been strongly im- 
pressed with the belief that they are calculated, sooner or later, to 
bring chemical action under the dominion of the laws of quantity ; 
and had he not despaired, under his professional engagements, of 
being himself able to submit them to experimental proof. These 
opinions, however, have been always introduced as mere illustra- 
tions. 

The argument of design is necessarily cumulative ; that is to say, 
is made up of many similar arguments. To avoid repetitions there- 
fore, the illustration of principles rather than of details, has been 
studied ; and the application of particular facts to the argument, has 
been often left to the reader. 

London, February 3, 1834. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Of the Leading Argument of Natural Theology ; that Design, or the Adap- 
tation of Means to an end exists in Nature. 1 1 

BOOK I. 

CHEMISTRY. 

Preliminary Observations on the Rank of Chemistry as a Science ; and 

on the Application of Chemistry to the Argument of Design. 13 
Chapter I. — Of the Mutual Operation of Physical Agents and of Matter, 

and of the Laws which they obey. 19 

Chapter II. — Of the Inertia and Activity of Matter. 20 

Chapter III. — Of Molecular or Polarizing Forces, etc, 22 

Section I. Of the Divisibility of Matter. 23 

Section II. Of the Forms of Aggregation of the ultimate Molecules of 

Matter. 24 

Section III. Of the solid Form of Bodies. Crystallization. 29 

Of Electricity. 30 

Of Magnetism. 32 

Of Polarity. . 34 

Section IV. Of the Liquid Form of Bodies. Of Heat. 36 

Of the Latency of Heat. 38 

Section V. Of the Gaseous Form of Bodies. 40 

Of the Diffusion of Gaseous Bodies. 41 

Of the equal Expansion of Gaseous Bodies; and of their similar 

Capacity for Heat. 42 
Section VI. Of the other Properties of Heat. Of Heat in Motion. Of 

the Radiation, Conduction, and Convection of Heat. 45 

Section VII. Of Light. 45 

Of the Radiation of Light. 45 

Of the Reflection and Refraction of Light. 45 

Of the Polarization of Light. 46 

Of the Decomposition of Light. 48 
Section VIII. Of the Sources of Heat and Light. 

Section IX. Recapitulation and General Observations on the Subjects 
treated of in the preceding Chapters. 
Arguments in Proof of design, Deducible from the Divisibility and 
Molecular constitution of Matter. 



50 



Xll CONTENTS. 

Chapter IV. — Of Chemical Elementary Principles, and of the Laws of 

their combination. 55 

Section I. Of Chemical Elementary Principles. 56 

Of the Five Elementary Supporters of Combustion; Oxygen, Chlo- 
rine, Bromine, Iodine, and Fluorine. 57 
Of Elements, which instead of Supporting Combustion, are for the 

most part themselves Combustible. 60 

Of the Eight Elements not Metallic, generally termed Acidifiable 
Bases, most of which are Combustible; Hydrogen, Carbon, 
Azote, Boron, Silicon, Phosphorus, Sulphur, Selenium. 60 

Of the ten Metalloids, Arsenic, Antimony, Tellurium, Chromium, 
Uranium, Vanadium, Molybdaenum, Tungsten, Titanium, Co- 
lumbium. 63 

Of the Twelve Metallic Bases of the Alkalies and Earths ; Potas- 
sium, Sodium, Lithium, Calcium, Magnesium, Strontium, Ba- 
rium, Aluminum, Glucinum, Yttrium, Zirconium, and Thori- 
num. 64 

Of the nineteen Metals Proper; Iron, Manganese, Nickel, Cobalt, 
Cerium, Zinc, Cadmium, Lead, Tin, Bismuth, Copper, Mer- 
cury, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Palladium, Rhodium, Iridium, 
Osmium. 66 

Section II. Of the Laws of Chemical Combination. 69 

Of the Atomic theory. 75 

Of the Representation of the Combining Molecules of Bodies by 

Numerical series. 77 

Section III. General Remarks upon Chemical Compounds. 78 

Of Primary Compounds. 78 

Of Acids. 78 

Of Alkalies and Bases. 78 

Of Neutral Compounds. 80 

Of Secondary Compounds ; Salts. 80 

Section IV. Recapitulation. General reflections on the Subjects treated 

of in the preceding Chapters. 82 

Statement of the Facts on which the Atomic Theory is Founded. 82 

Of the Adaptation of Subordinate to Primordial Agents and Elements, 
and of the Means by which these Adaptations have been effected 
Of Adaptations produced by adjustments of quality and quantity. B6 

Of the Tendency in nature to a state of Repose or Equilibrium. 86 

Of the creation of the Elements with the Properties essential to pro- 
duce perfect Compounds. 90 
Of the wonderful Nature of the most simple Chemical Processes. 99 
Brief Examination of certain Objections to the Argument of Design. 93 



CONTENTS. Xill 

BOOK II. 

Of Meteorology ; comprehending a General Sketch of the Constitu- 
tion of the Globe; and of the Distribution and Mutual Influence 
of the Agents and elements of Chemistry in the Economy of Na- 
ture. 

Preliminary Observations. 96 

Chapter I. — Of the General Structure of the Earth; particularly with re- 
ference to the Distribution of its Surface into Land and Water ; and 
with respect to its Atmosphere. 97 

Section I. Of the General Relations of the Sea and Land to each other. 97 
Section II. Of the Ocean. 98 

Section III. Of the Atmosphere. 100 

Chapter II. — Of Heat and Light; the Modes of Estimating their Degree, 
and the Ways in which they are Propagated. Of the general Tempe- 
rature of the Celestial Regions, and of the Earth independently of 
the Sun. 104 

Section I. Of Heat and Light, and the Modes of estimating their 

degree. 104 

Section II. Of the Propagation of Heat and Light. 105 

Section III. Of the Temperature of the Celestial Regions. 105 

Section IV. Of the Temperature of the Interior of the Earth. 106 

Chapter III. — Of the Temperature of the Earth at its Surface, as depen- 
dent on the Sun. 108 
Section I. Of Mean Temperature. 109 
Section II. Of the actual Distribution of Temperature over the Globe. 

Of Isothermal Lines, &c. Climate. 110 

Of the temperature of the Poles and of the Polar Regions. 110 

Of the mean annual Temperature of the Equator. Ill 

Of the Temperature of the intermediate Regions of the Globe. 
Of Isothermal Lines, &c. 112 

Climate. 115 

Chapter. IV. — Of the Primary Constituents of Climate: or of the Tem- 
perature of the Earth, as dependent on its Globular Form ; and on its 
Annual and Diurnal Motions. 115 

Chapter V. — Of the Secondary or subsidiary Constituents of Climate; 
comprehending a Sketch of those Circumstances capable of Influ- 
encing Climate, which are the more immediately connected with the 
Surface of the Earth, as consisting of Land or Water ; or which are 
connected with the Atmosphere. 117 

Section I. Of the secondary Constituents of Climate, immediately con- 
nected with the Surface of the Earth; and depending on the Nature 
of that Surface as composed of Land or Water. 118 

1. Of the Proportion of Solar Heat and Light that actually arrives 
at the Surface of the Earth. 1 18 

B 



XIV CONTENTS. 

2. 9f the Distribution of Heat and Light over ihe Earth's Sur- 

face in the latent and Decomposed Forms. 119 

Of the General Distribution of Electricity and Magnetism over 

the Earth. 120 

Of the Distribution of Light in the decomposed Form over the 

Earth. 122 

3. Of the Laws of Absorption, Radiation, and Reflection of Heat 

and Light. 123 

4. Of the Conduction of Heat below the Earth's Surface on Land. 126 

5. Of the Propagation of Heat and Light below the Earth's Sur- 

face in Water. 127 

Of the Temperature of the Water's of the Ocean ?.t great Depths. 130 
Of the under Currents of the Ocean existing between the Equa- 
torial and the Polar Regions. 130 
Temperature on Land and at Sea. 131 
Temperature of Natural Springs. 132 
Section II. Of the Secondary Constituents of Climate immediately con- 
nected with the Atmosphere. 133 
1. Of the Distribution of heat and of light through the Atmo- 
sphere, and of the Consequences. 133 
Of the Limits of Perpetual Snow. 134 
Of the Distribution of Heat and light through the Atmosphere 

in their Latent and Decomposed Forms. 13G 

Of the Propagation of Sensible Heat through the Atmosphere. 136 
Of Atmospheric Currents. The Trade Winds. 138 

2. Of the Presence of Water in the Atmosphere. 140 

Of the Relations of the Water in the Atmosphere to Tempera- 
ture. 140 
Of the General Relations of Evaporation and Condensation. 147 
Of the Actual Quantity of Water that is evaporated and con- 
densed over the Earth. 154 
Of Dew and Hoar Frost. 157 
Of Mists and Fogs. 159 
Of Clouds. 160 
Of Snow and Sleet. 163 
Of Rain. 164 
Of Hail. 168 
Of the Distribution of Heat and Light in their latent and de- 
composed Forms through the Vapour of the Atmosphere; 
and of the Effects of that Distribution. 168 
Of the Relations of Electricity to the Vapour of the Atmo- 
sphere. 169 
Of the Aurora Borealis. 170 
Of the Phenomena depending Upon the decomposition, Refrac- 
tion, and Reflection of LFght by the Vapour of the Atmo- 
sphere. The Mirage. The Fata Morgana, ll.ilos. The 
Rainbow. 170 



CONTENTS. XV 

3. Of the Occasional Presence of Foreign Bodies in the Atmosphere; 

and of their Effects. 170 

Of Matters suspended in the Atmosphere in a state of Mixture. 

Coloured Rain and Snow. Aerolite?. Dry Fogs. 172 

Of Matters which pervade the Atmosphere in a state of Solu- 
tion. Malaria. 175 
Recapitulation. The Arrangements of Climate demonstrative 
of Design. 176 
Chapter VI. — Of the Adaptation of Organized Beings to Climate; com- 
prehending a General Sketch of the Distribution of Plants and Ani- 
mals over the Earth, and of the Present Position and Future Prospects 
of Man. 180 
Of the Formation and Ingredients of the Soil. 181 
Section I. Of the Distribution of Plants over the Globe. 182 

1. Of the Differences of Vegetation, as liable to be influenced by Soil, 

and by other minor Local Circumstances, in the same Climate. 182 

2. Of the Influence of Climate on Vegetation. Distribution of Plants. 183 

Profusion of Vegetable Productions. 187 

Section II. Of the Distribution of Animals over the Earth. 189 

1. Of the Differences existing among Animals in similar Climates. 190 

2. Of the Effects of Diversity of Climate on the Distribution of Ani- 

mals. 192 

Migration and Hybernation. 196 

Coverings of Animals. 197 

Section III. Of the present Position and future Prospects of Man. 199 



BOOK III. 

Of the Chemistry of Organization: particularly of the Chemical 
Process of Digestion: and of the subsequent Processes, by which 
various Alimentary Substances are assimilated to, and become Com- 
ponent Parts of, a Living Body. 204 

Chapter I. — Of the Nature and Composition of Organized Bodies in gene- 
ral, as compared with Inorganic Matter. 204 

1. Of Organic Bodies considered as Chemical Compounds. 205 

Of the Chemical Composition of Sugar, Vinegar, Starch, and 
Wood. 206 

2. Of the Cause of the Differences in the Sensible Properties of 

Substances nearly allied in their Chemical Composition. 209 

Of the Peculiarity of the Composition of Organic Substances. 209 
Of the Nature of the Agents by which Organic Substances are 
produced. 211 

3. Of the Modes of Operation of Organic Agents. 212 

Reflections on the Mutual Adaptation of the Elements and the 
Agents of Organic Nature. 216 



XVI CONTEXTS. 

Chapter II. — Of the Modes of Nutrition ; comprehending a Sketch of the 
Alimentary Apparatus; and of Alimentary Substances in Plants and 
in Animals. 218 

Section I. Of the Modes of the Nutrition of Plants ; and of the Nature 

of those Matters by which their Nutritionis effected. 218 

Section II. Of the Modes of Nutrition in Animals; and of the Alimen- 
tary Substances by which they are nourished. 221 
1. Of the Organs of Digestion in Animals. 222 
Of the mouth and its Appendages. 222 
Of the (Esophagus, the Stomach, and the Intestinal Canal, 224 
Of the Liver, the Pancreas, and the Spleen. 228 
Of the Circulation of the Blood, and of the Distribution of the 

Nerves in the Organs of Digestion. 229 

Of Alimentary Substances composed of the Saccharine, the Oily, 
and the Albuminous Principles. 231 

Chapter III. — Of the Digestive Process ; and of the General Action of the 

Stomach and the Duodenum. 235 

Of the Influence of Water as an Essential, and as an Accidental 

Ingredient of Alimentary Substances. 235 

Of the Powers exerted by the Stomach in the Digestion cf the 

Food. 239 

1. Of the Reducing Powers of the Stomach. 239 

2. Of the Powers of Conversion possessed by the Stomach. 243 

3. Of the Organizing and Vitalizing Powers of the Stomach. 244 
Of the Changes the Food undergoes in the Duodenum. 245 
Of the Functions of the Alimentary Canal, beyond the Duo- 
denum. 246 

Observations on the choice and the Preparation of Aliment. 247 

Observations on the General Character cf the Assimilating 

Agency. 2 IS 

Chapter IV. — Of the Processes of Assimilation subsequent to those in 
the Stomach and the Alimentary Canal; particularly of the Conversion 
of the Chyle into Blood. Of Respiration and its Uses. Of the Final 
Decomposition of Organized Bodies. General Reflections and Con- 
clusion. 250 

1. Of the Passage of the Chyle from the Alimentary Canal into the 

Sanguiferous System; and of the Function of Absorption 
generally. 250 

Process similar to Digestion carried on in all Parts of the Body. 362 

2. Of the Blood. 

Of the Constituents of the Blood. 858 

Of the Organization of the Blood. 253 

3. Of Respiration. 853 

Of the different Colours of Arterial and of Venous Blood. 85 1 

Of the Source of the Carbonic Acid in Venous Blood, ind of 

the Gaseous Vapour that is expelled from the Lungs. 255 



CONTENTS. XVII 

Of the use of the continual Extraction of Carbonic Acid from 

Living Animals. 255 

4. Of Secretion. 256 

5. Of the Spontaneous Decay of Organized Bodies. 257 
Recapitulation of the Mechanical Arrangements of the Digestive 

Organs, and of the Chemical Changes by which the Food is 
adapted for Assimilation. 258 

Reflections on the Mutual Dependence of Plants and Animals. 
On the Subserviency of their Mechanism to the Chemical 
Properties of Matter; and on the beneficial Effects of their 
Renovation and Deea}\ 261 

Conclusion. Of the Future Progress of Chemistry; of the Ap- 
plication of Chemistry to Physiological Research; and of 
the Tendency of Physical Knowledge to elevate the Mind by 
Displaying the Attributes of the Deity and the Immensity of 
His Works. 263 

Appendix. Containing Additional Notes and Emendations. 268 



INTRODUGTIOI^O^" 

OF THE LEADING ARGUMENT OF NATURAL THEOLOGY ; THAT DESIGN, OR • 
THE ADAPTATION OF MEANS TO AN END, EXfSTS l£ iJlTURE. 

With the view of illustrating the argument of design, we shall com- 
mence with a statement of that argument in its simplest form. 

Animals in cold climates have been provided with a covering of fur. 
Men in such climates cover themselves with that fur. In both cases, 
whatever may have been the end or object, no one can deny that the 
effect, at least, is precisely the same : the animal and the man are alike 
protected' from the cold. Now, since the animal did not clothe itself, but 
must have been clothed by another ; it follows, that whoever clothed the 
animal, must have known what the man knows, and must have reasoned 
like the man; that is to say, the clother of the animal must have known 
that the climate in which the animal is placed, is a cold climate ; and 
that a covering of fur, is one of the best means of warding off the cold ; 
he therefore clothed his creature in this very appropriate material. 

The man who clothes himself in fur to keep off the cold, performs an 
act directed to a certain end; in short, an act of design. So, whoever, 
directly or indirectly, caused the animal to be clothed with fur to keep 
off the cold, must likewise have performed an act of design. 

But, under the circumstances, the clother of the animal, must be ad- 
mitted to have been also the Creator of the animal ; and by extending 
the argument ; the Creator of man himself — of the universe. Moreover, 
the reasoning the Creator has displayed in clothing the animal, He has 
designed to impart to man, who is thus enabled to recognise his Creator's 
design. 

Such is an instance of those varied adaptations of means to ends 
around him, which man by his reasoning appreciates ; and which de- 
monstrate to him, the existence of an intelligent Creator. Compared, 
however, with the extent of creation, the instances, numerous as they 
appear, in which man is thus able to trace the designs of his Creator, are 
really few. Man not only sees means directed to certain ends ; but ends 
accomplished by means, which he is totally unable to understand. He 
also sees, everywhere, things, the nature, and the end of which are ut- 



XX INTRODUCTION. 

terly beyond his comprehension ; and respecting which, he is obliged to 
content himself with simply inferring the existence of design. 

The argument of design, therefore, in its general sense, embraces at 
least three classes of objects : — 

1. Those objects, regarding which, the reasoning of man coincides 
with the reasoning evinced by his Creator; as in the simple adaptation 
of clothing above-mentioned: or those objects, in which, man is able to 
trace, to a certain extent, his Creator's designs ; as in various phenome- 
na amenable to the laws of quantity ; viz. mechanics, &c. 

2. Those objects, in which, man sees no more than the preliminaries 
and the results, or the end and design accomplished ; without being able 
to trace through their details, the means of that accomplishment ; as in 
all the phenomena and operations of chemistry. 

3. Those objects, in which, design is inferred, but in which the de- 
sign, as well as the means by which it is accomplished, are alike con- 
cealed ; as in the existence of fixed stars, of comets, of organized life : 
and indeed in all the great and more recondite phenomena of nature. 

The intention of these Treatises, is to point out the various evidences 
of design, among the objects of creation ; and to deduce from them, the 
existence, and the attributes, of the Creator. The following pages are 
occupied more particularly, with the illustration of the evidences of de- 
sign, in objects belonging to the second of the three classes above-men- 
tioned ; with those, namely, in w T hich design is obvious, though we can- 
not trace the means by which that design is accomplished. 






OF CHEM* 



ix> 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS ON THE RANK OF CHEMISTRY AS A SCIENCE ? 



AND ON ITS APPLICATION TO THE ARGUMENT OF DESI 

"Chemistry does not afford the same species of argument (in 
favour of design) that mechanism affords, and yet may afford an 
argument in a high degree satisfactory."* This remark of the 
excellent Paley has been made by him with reference only to a 
particular subject, but the following sketch, pointing out the grounds 
upon which chemistry as a science is founded, and the rank which 
it holds among the departments of human knowledge, will at the 
same time show the general truth of the remark. 

An elaborate inquiry into the origin and nature of human know- 
ledge would be quite misplaced here. We shall content ourselves 
with simply considering it as of two kinds, viz: a knowledge of 
what must be ; that is to say of what we cannot conceive either not 
to exist, or to exist otherwise than as it is, and which is therefore 
founded 'upon reason; and a knowledge of what simply is, but how 
or why we know not, and for the existence of which, therefore, we 
can assign no reason but our experience alone. 

Of these, the only instance of the first kind which particularly 
concerns us at present, is the knowledge of quantity and its relations 
in general ; of the second, that of certain natural phenomena, the 
consideration of which constitutes the principal object of the present 
volume. 

The fundamental differences between these two great branches of 
human knowledge, as well as their consequences, cannot perhaps be 
more strikingly illustrated than in the following familiar exposition 
by a celebrated writer. "A clever man," says Sir J. Herschel, 
" shut up alone and allowed unlimited time, might reason out for 
himself all the truths of mathematics, by proceeding from those 
simple notions of space and number of which he cannot divest him? 
self without ceasing to think ; but he would never tell by any effort 
of reason what would become of a lump of sugar, if immersed in 
water, or what impression would be produced on his eye by mixing 
the colours yellow and blue,"f results which can be learnt only 
from experience. 

* Natural Theology, chap. vii. 

f Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, p. 76. 
2 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

Thus then the extremes of human knowledge may be considered 
as founded on the one hand purely upon reason, and on the other 
purely upon sense. Now, a very large portion of our knowledge, 
and what in fact may be considered as the most important part of 
it, lies between these two extremes, and results from a union or 
mixture of them, that is to say, consists of the application of ra- 
tional principles to the phenomena presented by the objects of 
nature. 

With respect to knowledge founded upon reason, we are so con- 
stituted, that whether we contemplate those primary notions of 
space, time, force, &c. above alluded to in the abstract, or whether 
we view them in connexion with the objects of sense around us, we 
cannot divest them of quantity, which seems to be involved in their 
very essence. Quantity and its relations, therefore, in some shape 
or other, enter as a necessary element into by far the greater 
portion of human knowledge. Now the primary relations of quan- 
tity are exceedingly simple ; one quantity may be equal to another, 
or it may be greater or less, but we can conceive no other relation. 
Hence all the operations of the mathematics — the science of quan- 
tity and its relations — however abstruse and complicated they ap- 
pear can be ultimately resolved into addition and subtraction. 

It is principally then through the medium of the relations of quan- 
tity that we are enabled to reason in a satisfactory manner upon the 
objects of sense. For us everything in nature, or what is the same 
thing to us, every sensation produced by one natural object, as com- 
pared with that produced by another, must be either equal or similar, 
or unequal or dissimilar ; the whole are capable of being subjected, 
more or less perfectly, to the laws of quantity. This is effected 
in various ways and by various artifices, but chiefly through the 
intervention of certain natural or assumed units, or standards of 
resemblance, as a second in time, a foot in space, &c. and in pro- 
portion to the definite character of these units, or standards, and as 
they can be more or less satisfactorily applied, so will the resulting 
branch of knowledge be more or less of a mathematical character, 
or be more or less rational and perfect. 

By contemplating, in the abstract, the boundless relations of time 
and of space, where no end can be conceived to addition and sub- 
traction, we arrive at the only notions of infinity of which our nature 
seems capable. These once obtained, the obvious and necessary 
existence of cause within the narrow sphere of our observation 
naturally leads us to inquire, can this cause be infinite? And thus 
we are led by degrees, but irresistibly, to the sublimest of all con- 
clusions, that a Cause or Agent in every way commensurate with 
infinity — omniscient and omnipresent, eternal and omnipotent must 
exisl — in other words a (Jon. 

Compared with infinity, however, and even with the objects of 
nature as they visibly exist around us. our actual knowledge of time 



INTRODUCTION. 



and of space is exceedingly limited. Like travellers on an ex- 
tended plain, we see what is going on around us at the present mo- 
ment, but the distant and the very near, the past and the future, are 
alike unknown to us. A few millions of miles, for example, or a 
few thousand years, comprise the utmost that we know of space 
and of time. On the other hand, beyond the fraction of an inch, 
or of a second, everything belonging to space and time is inappre- 
ciable by our senses. Yet beyond these limits we know that myriads 
of portions of space and of time must exist, too vast or too minute 
to be referred to our imperfect standards. Let us, for instance, 
take the distance of the nearest fixed star. This we are assured by 
astronomers is so great that the utmost measure we can apply to 
it — the diameter of the earth's orbit — a space of no less than 
192,000,000 of miles is absolutely too little to measure it by — is in 
fact contained within it so many times that the number cannot at 
present be counted ! On the other hand, we shall presently find, 
that the molecules of matter of which the objects we see around us 
are composed are so minute, that a measure scarcely appreciable 
by the unassisted sight, the thousandth part of an inch for example, 
is vastly too large to compare them with, and may in fact comprise 
millions of them ! 

Experience, the great and ultimate source of all the knowledge 
we possess of those portions of nature to which our faculties are 
limited may be acquired in two ways ; by simple observation, and 
by experiment ; that is to say, either " by noticing facts as they 
occur without any attempt to influence the frequency of their occur- 
rence, or to vary the circumstances under which they occur ;" or 
" by putting in action causes and agents over which we have con- 
trol, and purposely varying these combinations, and noticing what 
effects take place."* Now in all the higher departments of know- 
ledge the objects of which are principally matter, and its motions in 
the aggregate, the information we can acquire by one or both these 
means is so complete, and at the same time so favourable to the ap- 
plication of the relations of quantity, that the resulting sciences have 
all the certainty of abstract truths themselves. But when the know- 
ledge we possess of objects is wholly sensible, and in no way com- 
mensurate, or only very imperfectly so with their quantity, here it is 
that uncertainty begins ; for though we may be able to trace the ap- 
parent cause and effect of a particular phenomenon, the most minute 
and careful observation and experiment, often give us but little in- 
sight into the connexion between the two, and generally fail us 
altogether. The reason of this is to be sought for in the limited na- 
ture of our faculties, and particularly in our complete ignorance of 
the nature of that mysterious communication which we maintain 
with the external world through the medium of sensation. In two 

* Herscbel's Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, p. 76. 



16 INTRODUCTION. 

of the senses indeed, seeing and hearing, we are able to trace the 
intermediate train of phenomena between the external object pro- 
ducing the sensation and the sensation itself, and even to form some 
idea of the remote cause of the sensation ; but in the other two 
senses, tasting and smelling, the whole is involved in mystery from 
beginning to end. 

Thus when a bell is struck, philosophers have satisfactorily de- 
monstrated that a vibratory motion, excited in the bell, and depend- 
ing upon its elasticity, is communicated to the air in contact with 
it, and through this medium is propagated to the ear, in which organ, 
we know not why, the sensation of sound is excited. Circum- 
stances very similar have been supposed to take place with respect 
to light, and undulce (or something obeying the laws of undula) 
have been demonstrated to exist and to be propagated from the 
luminous body to the eye, and thus the remote cause of sound, and 
probably of light, is proved to be motion. But in the cases of tast- 
ing and smelling the circumstances are altogether dissimilar ; here 
the sapid and odoriferous matters are brought at once into actual 
contact with the sentient organs, and the sensations are the conse- 
quence without any intermediate train of phenomena, at least any 
that we can appreciate. What it is therefore in an acid or a rose 
for example, analogous to motion in the bell, and which produces 
the sensations we call sour and sweet we know not, and probably 
never shall know, and simply because the laws and relations of 
quantity are here either totally inapplicable, or can be only indirectly 
and most imperfectly applied. 

These observations are principally introduced with reference to 
the department of knowledge we have at present to consider. Al- 
most all of what are denominated the chemical properties of bodies, 
are objects of taste and of smell, rather than of sight and of hear- 
ing. Hence they admit only of the indirect application of the laws 
of quantity, and are the result, not of reason but solely of expe- 
rience. Indeed, so much is chemistry the creature of actual ex- 
perimental research, that its simplest truths have seldom been 
anticipated a priori. Thousands of years of observation and expe- 
rience for example had not taught mankind that water is composed 
of two elementary gaseous principles, much less the proportions in 
which those principles combine to form water. Nay. even now the 
fact has been established upon the clearest evidence, we are unable 
to explain why it is so, or even to comprehend the nature o\' the 
union or its result. Hence, to use the language of Paley, in all 
chemical operations — "our situation is precisely like that o\ an un- 
mechanical looker-on, who stands by a machine, the fabric o( which 
is hidden from his sight by the outside case, or if seen, would be too 
complicated for his uninformed understanding to comprehend. And 
what," continues this energetic writer, " is that situation I Ignorant 
as he is, he does not fail to see that certain materials, in patting 



INTRODUCTION". 17 

through the machine, undergo remarkable changes ; and what is 
more, changes manifestly adapted for future use. It is necessary 
that this man, in order to be convinced that design, that intention, 
that contrivance, have been employed about the machine, should be 
allowed to pull it to pieces to study its construction ? He may in- 
deed wish to do this for many reasons, but for all the purposes of 
ascertaining the existence of counsel and design in the formation of 
the machine, he wants no such intromission or privity. What he 
sees is sufficient. The effect upon the material, the change pro- 
duced in it, the utility of that change for further applications abun- 
dantly testify, be the concealed part of the machine, or of its con- 
struction what it will, the hand and agency of a contriver."* 

We have thus attempted to point out the rank which chemistry 
holds among human knowledge, and the kind of evidence which it 
furnishes in favour of design; and the whole argument may be 
briefly recapitulated as follows: chemistry is a branch of know- 
ledge founded solely on experience, for the phemonena of which we 
can assign no reason. But although the intimate nature of its 
changes be unknown to us, we see them manifestly directed to cer- 
tain ends ; hence as objects directed to certain ends, where the 
whole of the intermediate phenomena can be traced and understood, 
always imply design, we naturally infer design in others obviously 
so directed, even although we may not be able to understand their 
intimate nature. 

Such is the state in which Paley has left the argument, and w T hile 
we admit that even in its most perfect form, it is less satisfactory 
than that founded upon mechanism, we have always thought that 
our excellent author has not made quite so much of his subject as 
he might have done, and that the very imperfections and difficulties 
of chemistry and of the allied branches of knowledge give them 
some advantages over mechanism itself. When a series of wheels 
or of levers are arranged in a certain order, they must move in a 
certain way, and produce a certain effect which can be foretold 
exactly. In such a case, we may admire the skill and ingenuity of 
the Contriver, or perhaps feel astonished at Ms power, but we 
scarcely do more, and much of the effect is. lost in the apparent 
necessity of the result, and the consciousness that under the circum- 
stances nothing else could have happened. When the Deity, there- 
fore, operates through the medium of mechanism, he appears almost 
too obviously to limit his powers within the trammels of necessity ; 
but when he operates through the medium of chemistry, the laws of 
which are less obvious, and indeed for the most part unknown to us, 
his operations have much more the character of those of a free 
agent, and, in many instances also, appear of a higher order, and 

• Natural Theology, chap. vii. condensed slightly, but the argument strictly 
adhered to. 

2# 



18 INTRODUCTION. 

are more striking and wonderful. Do not, for instance, those ex- 
traordinary and mysterious changes constantly going on around us, 
beneath us, within us, derive no small additional interest from the 
very circumstances of their not being understood? Just such an 
interest, to revert to the argument of Paley, as the unmechanical 
looker-on feels in the operations of a corn-mill, a carding-machine, 
or a threshing machine, and to which he who is well acquainted 
with the mechanism is a stranger. Certainly this is the case. Ob- 
vious mechanism, though well-suited to display the intelligence and 
design of the Contriver, is not always so well adapted for arresting 
the attention of the observer ; its very obviousness in some measure 
depriving it of its interest. But when we see the same Contriver, 
besides the most beautiful and complicated mechanism, employ other 
means utterly above our comprehension, though evidently most 
familiar to him, the circumstance is not only calculated to arrest 
our attention more forcibly, but at the same time to impress us with 
more exalted notions of his wisdom and power. 

There yet remain one or two other points to be briefly considered 
before we proceed to our subject. In the first place it may be asked, 
do those extraordinary changes which appear to be constantly 
going on in bodies around us, indicate real and substantial changes 
in the bodies themselves, or are they mere phantasms and creations 
of the organs of sense, through which we become acquainted with 
them 1 The discussion of this question will probably be considered 
by most as superfluous, but for the sake of those (if there be any) 
who entertain doubts upon the point, it may be remarked, that the 
sensations, though admitted to be mere signals or indications, bear- 
ng little or no analogy with the causes producing them, and there- 
fore throwing little light upon their nature, do nevertheless represent 
real and substantial operations of some sort in the bodies them- 
selves. This might be proved were it necessary by a variety of 
arguments, but one or two only will be sufficient for our present 
purpose. In the first place it may be stated, that changes in the 
chemical constitution of bodies are usually accompanied by corre- 
sponding changes in weight Now weight is a modification of force, 
one of those self-evident existences which we cannot doubt without 
doubting our own. Another, and perhaps indeed the most striking 
argument in favour of the reality of chemical changes, may be de- 
duced from the subserviency to them of those mechanical contri- 
vances and operations everywhere existing in organized beings. 
At least, half the mechanism in a living animal is subservient to the 
chemical changes constantly going on in it, and necessary to its 
existence. Take, for instance, the circulation of the blood : what a 
complicated apparatus is here employed for the simple purpose of 
exposing the blood to the action of the air in the lungs, in order that 
it may there undergo some chemical change. Now, surely no one 
can reasonably doubt that this chemical change is as much a reality 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

as the mechanism by which it has been accomplished ; and if one 
chemical change be admitted to be a reality, why may not all 
others ? 

Lastly, if there be any one who denies the existence of design, 
and sees nothing in all the more obvious arrangements and order 
around him but the necessary results of what he chooses to denomi- 
nate " the laws of nature," let him calmly and deliberately consider 
the facts brought forward in the following pages ; and if he can wit- 
ness unconvinced all the numerous instances of prospective arrange- 
ment obviously made with reference to things not yet in existence ; 
all the beautiful adjustments and adaptations of noxious and conflict- 
ing elements most wonderfully conspiring together for good ; and, 
lastly, the subversion of even his favourite " laws of nature" them- 
selves, when a particular purpose requires it ; if, we say, he can wit- 
ness all these and still remain incredulous of the evidences of design, 
we can only observe, that his mind must be most singularly consti- 
tuted, and apparently beyond the reach of conviction. 



CHAPTER I. 

OF THE MUTUAL OPERATION OF PHYSICAL AGENTS AND OF MATTER, AND 
OF THE LAWS WHICH THEY OBEY. 

" God has been pleased to prescribe limits to his own power, and 
to work his ends within those limits. The general laws of matter 
have perhaps the nature of these limits ; its inertia, its reaction, the 
laws which govern the communication of motion, of light, of heat, of 
magnetism and electricity, and probably of others yet undiscovered. 
These are general laws, and when a particular purpose is to be ef- 
fected, it is not by making them wind and bend and yield to the oc- 
casion, (for nature with great steadiness adheres to and supports 
them,) but it is, as we have seen in the eye, by the interposition of 
an apparatus corresponding with these laws, and suited to the exi- 
gency which results from them, that the purpose is at length attained. 
As we have said, therefore, God prescribes limits to his power, that 
he may let in the exercise, and thereby exhibit demonstrations of his 
wisdom. For then, i. e. such laws and limitations being laid down, 
it is as though one Being should have fixed certain rules; and, if we 
may so speak, provided certain materials ; and afterwards have 
committed to another Being, out of these materials, and in subordi- 
nation to these rules, the task of drawing forth a creation : a suppo- 
sition which evidently leaves room, and induces indeed a necessity 
for contrivance. Nay, there may be many such agents, and many 



20 CHEMISTRY. 

ranks of these."* This admirable passage from Paley is so much in 
point, and so exactly expresses our views upon the subject, that we 
have chosen it as a text, as in a former instance, for illustration. We 
shall proceed, therefore, to take a summary view of " the limits 
within which the Deity has confined his operations ;" that is to say, 
of the laws by which matter, and these subordinate agents by which 
it is capable of being influenced, have been made to mutually act and 
react upon each other. 

The principles of activity which operate as subordinate agencies 
in nature may be considered as of two kinds ; those which operate 
universally upon every individual atom of matter without reference 
to its sensible properties, as the forces producing the phenomena of 
gravitation, &c; and those which operate among the different con- 
stituent molecules of which all bodies are composed, and which are 
denominated molecular or polarizing forces, &c. Of each of these 
we shall in the first place endeavour to convey some idea to the 
general reader. 



CHAPTER II. 

ON THE INERTIA AND ACTIVITY OF MATTER. 

To form a notion of what is termed the inertia or inactivity of mat- 
ter, let us imagine a portion of it, as for example, a ball of lead a detach- 
ed from all other matter, and existing absolutely uninfluenced in space. 
Such a mass of matter, if supposed to be at rest, must obviously re- 
main so, for it cannot move itself; on the other hand, if it be sup- 
posed to be in motion, it must continue in motion, for it cannot be 
conceived to be able to stop itself any more than it could be con- 
ceived to be able to set itself in motion ; in short, a mass of matter 
under such circumstances of isolation must be considered as per- 
fectly passive and unable to change its state, whatever that may hap- 
pen to be, whether of motion or of rest. Now let us suppose ano- 
ther portion of matter, as for example, another ball of lead b exactly 
of the same size as a, placed in a free space at any moderate dis- 
tance from a, and away from all other influences, what will happen ! 
We know from general experience that under these circumstances, 
the two balls will mutually approach each other with an accelerated 
motion, till they meet at a point exactly intermediate from those at 
which they first started; and the inference from this experience is, 
that the two balls exert a mutual and equal attractive force, which 

• Natural Theology, ch:ip. iii. 



ON THE INERTIA AND ACTIVITY OF MATTER. 21 

causes them to move towards each other. If the ball b be twice the 
size of the ball a, the two balls will mutually approach each other as 
before, but, in this instance, instead of moving with equal velocity, 
while the ball a moves two feet, the ball b will only move one foot ; 
or taking an extreme case, and supposing the ball b to be indefinitely 
larger, say a million times larger, than the ball a, they will mutually 
influence and mutually move towards each other as before, but the 
motion of the ball b will be so minute as to be insensible, while that 
of the ball a will be the greatest possible. Here we have instances 
of the inertia (inactivity, opposing force, &c.) and of the activity 
(force of attraction, force of gravitation, &c.) which all matter ex- 
erts reciprocally and mutually towards all other matter, and the laws 
of which, as deducible from the circumstances stated, and from others, 
which it would be foreign to our present purpose to enter upon, may, 
in general terms, be given as follows : " The mutual attraction of two 
bodies increases in the same proportion as their masses are increased, 
and as the square of their distance is decreased, and it decreases in 
proportion as their masses are decreased and as the square of their 
distance is increased." These laws, and those of the motions con- 
nected with them, are absolutely general, and not only extend to the 
utmost limits of the universe hitherto explored by man, but to every 
form and condition of matter, without exception and without refer- 
ence to its other properties. They, therefore, constitute, probably, 
the most comprehensive " limits which the Deity has been pleased to 
prescribe to His power," and within which He operates with the most 
unceasing and undeviating regularity and certainty ; they have also 
the remarkable property of being so amenable to the laws of quantity 
and mathematics, as to be in most instances as firmly established 
upon reason as abstract truths themselves. The mind of a Newton 
was chosen to reveal these laws to man, and man's acquaintance 
-with them may be justly considered as one of his noblest privileges. 
To point out their wonders in detail, and the sublime conclusions to 
which they lead, is the business of a colleague ; at present we have 
to consider them in their more general form only, and, except in a 
single point of view, as objects of comparison merely with those 
more immediately connected with our own subject. 

The point of view to which we allude is that peculiar case, or in- 
stance of gravitating force, termed weight. In our illustration of the 
attractive forces of matter above given we supposed a case in which 
one ball was very much larger than the other : now this pre- 
cisely corresponds with the case of the globe of the Earth, and of 
all common bodies near its surface. The earth is more than 
1,000,000,000,000,000 times the mass of any body which is observed 
to fall on its surface, and if even the largest body which can come 
under observation were to fall through a height of 500 feet, the cor- 
responding motion of the Earth would be through a space less than 
the 1,000,000,000,000,000th part of 500 feet, which is less than the 



22 CHEMISTRY. 

100,000,000,000th part of an inch, and therefore quite inappre- 
ciable.* Now the attractive force exerted between the earth and 
detached bodies is denominated weight. Hence the weight of a body, 
at the earth's surface, is proportionate to its mass, or to the quantity 
of matter it may contain, whatever its form or qualities may be — 
a most important fact for the chemist, who, by employing the che- 
mical properties of bodies as indications of identity or of change, is 
by these means enabled to apply to them the more certain measure 
of weight, and thus in some degree to bring them under the dominion 
of the laws of quantity. 



CHAPTER III. 



OF MOLECULAR OR POLARIZING FORCES, ETC. 

In all chemical operations, as already observed, we only witness 
the beginning and the end, the cause and the effect, while the whole 
of the intermediate changes elude our senses. Nevertheless, by a 
careful observation of the phenomena we are enabled to form some 
notion upon the subject, and that amply sufficient to convince us of 
their wonderful nature. With a view, therefore, of arresting the at- 
tention of those who may be unconscious of these wonders, or too 
apt to overlook them, we have thought it proper to premise a sketch 
of what may be supposed to take place among the ultimate particles 
of which all bodies are constituted, during those remarkable changes 
which they are constantly undergoing. And here it may be remark- 
ed, once for all, that many of the views commonly entertained on 
these points have always appeared to us to be so imperfect and un- 
satisfactory, that so far from elucidating the subject, they have only 
served to render it the more obscure. In the following sketch, 
therefore, as better adapted for our purpose, we have endeavoured 
to give that view of the subject, which, after twenty years of close 
attention and no ordinary labour, we have been induced to con- 
sider as the most simple and consistent with the phenomena. The 
general reader, who feels no interest in these Inquiries, and who at 
the same time wishes to be apprized of the* nature of the arguments 
deducible from the divisibility and molecular constitution of matter. 
is referred to the end of the present and of the following chapters 
for a summary of these arguments. 

• Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia, Art. Mechanics, p. 79. 



DIVISIBILITY OF MATTER. 23 

Section I. 

Of the Divisibility of Matter. 

The first point which naturally claims our attention in the consi- 
deration of molecular operations, is the size of these molecules ; a 
subject usually discussed under the head of the divisibility of matter. 
Matter, or rather space, may be conceived to be divisible ad infi- 
nitum; at least no limits can be assigned beyond which its subdivi- 
sion cannot necessarily proceed. As, however, it exists in the world 
around us, there cannot be the least doubt that it is composed of 
ultimate particles or molecules incapable of further division or 
change, at least by ordinary agents : the reasons for these asser- 
tions will appear hereafter, at present it is our object to convey to 
the general reader some idea of the magnitude of these particles, 
with the view, principally, of showing how infinitely they surpass 
the limited powers not only of our senses, but almost of our concep- 
tion. The subject, however, has so much attracted the attention of 
philosophers, that most of our readers must be already familiar with 
it; we shall therefore content ourselves with merely selecting a sin- 
gle instance from each of the kingdoms of nature. As an instance 
From the mineral kingdom, we may quote from Dr. Thomson, who 
has shown that an ultimate molecule of lead cannot weigh more 
than the aTowoVooWoth' nor an ultimate molecule of sulphur more 
than 2 ottoooo ooo-oo th of a grain, and probably a great deal less ; 
and that the size of the molecule of lead cannot surpass, and is pro- 
bably much less than the -gTFirg 20 owooo oo tn °f a cubic inch !* The 
vegetable kingdom presents us with innumerable instances, not only 
of the extraordinary divisibility of matter, but of its activity, in the 
almost incredibly rapid developement of cellular structure in certain 
plants. Thus the Bovista giganteum (a species of fungus,) has been 
known to acquire the size of a gourd in one night. Now supposing, 
with Professor Lindley, that the cellules of this plant are not less 
than the T Joth of an inch in diameter, a plant of the above size will 
contain no less than 47,000,000,000 cellules; so that, supposing it to 
have grown in the course of twelve hours, its cellules must have 
been developed at the rate of nearly 4,000,000,000 per hour, or of 
more than sixty-six millions in a minute !f and when we consider 
that every one of these cellules must be composed of innumerable 
molecules, each one of which is again composed of others, w r e are 
perfectly overwhelmed with the minuteness and number of the parts 
employed in this single production of nature. But the animal king- 
dom perhaps presents us with still more striking instances than these. 

* System of Inorg-anic Chemistry, I. 7. 
-j- Introduction to Botany, page 7. 



24 CHEMISTRY. 

Thus animalcules have been discovered whose magnitude is such 
that a million of them does not exceed a grain of sand ; and yet each 
of these creatures is composed of members as curiously organized 
as those of the largest species ; they have life and spontaneous mo- 
tion, and are endowed with feeling and instinct. In the liquids in 
which they live they are observed to move with astonishing speed 
and activity, nor are their motions blind and fortuitous, but evidently 
governed by choice and directed to an end. They use food and 
drink, from which they derive nutrition, and are therefore provided 
with a digestive apparatus. They have great muscular power, and 
are provided with limbs and muscles of strength and flexibility. 
They are susceptible of the same appetites, and obnoxious to the 
same passions. Must we not conclude that these creatures have 
hearts, arteries, veins, muscles, sinews, tendons, nerves, circulating 
fluids, and all the concomitant apparatus of a living organized body 1 
and if so, how inconceivably minute must these parts be ? If a glo- 
bule of their blood bears the same proportion to their whole bulk, as 
a globule of our blood bears to our magnitude, what power of cal- 
culation can give an adequate notion of its minuteness 1* 

We have thus endeavoured to convey some idea of the magnitude 
of the ultimate molecules of which bodies are composed ; but though 
we have succeeded in showing that they cannot exceed a certain 
magnitude, we are by no means certain that they are not in reality 
much less — indeed a great deal less than the least magnitude of 
which we have endeavoured above to convey a conception: yet 
notwithstanding this inapproachable minuteness, they retain all the 
characters of matter in the highest degree, and moreover possess 
certain remarkable properties in common, upon the nature of which, 
in the next place, we have to make a few remarks. 

Section II. 

Of the Forms of Aggregation of the ultimate Molecules of Matter. 

Matter in the aggregate, and as it appears to exist in the world 
around us, is known to us principally in three forms or conditions : — 
the Solid, the Liquid, and the Gaseous (the latter including the state 
of vapour and the etheriform conditions of matter) ; those in their 
well marked states are sufficiently distinct, though the whole gradu- 
ally run into each other; the solid into the liquid, and the liquid into 
the gaseous, by such imperceptible grades, that in many instances 
it is not easy to say where one ends and the other begins.f The 

• Lardner's Cyclopedia, Art. Mechanics, p. 13. 

f It may be proper here to observe that souk- bodies, as water, for instaner, ara 

capable of existing in that perfectly gaseous form denominated pqpour, under all 

ordinary circumstances; thus even ice gives off vapour rapidly, U we shall i\nd 
hereafter. 



SOLID FORM OF MATTER. 25 

notions, which the mechanician or natural philosopher employs in 
reasoning on these forms of bodies are — of a solid, that all its parts 
are indissolubly and unalterably connected, and impenetrable, so 
that the relative situation of the parts among one another, cannot be 
changed, or one part be set in motion without all the rest; of a 
liquid, that all its parts are freely moveable among one another, but 
that it is not dilatable or compressible by mechanical means ; of a 
gas or aeriform body, that all its parts are not only freely moveable 
among one another, but that it is compressible and dilatable without 
limits. Strictly speaking, however, there are no objects in nature 
actually existing which completely conform to these definitions; no 
solid, for instance, absolutely hard and impenetrable, no fluid not 
compressible and dilatable, no gas compressible or dilatable without 
limits : and these circumstances are evidently the natural result of 
their being composed of aggregations of the minute molecules we 
have been considering. Thus solids composed of such molecules 
must necessarily have innumerable interstices or pores ; hence when 
submitted to pressure, they are liable to undergo more or less of con- 
densation, and apparently occupy less space than before : the same 
remarks may be made with respect to liquids ; while gaseous bodies, 
supposed to be composed of such molecules, of course cannot be in- 
finitely compressible. 

Section III. 

Of the Solid Form of Bodies. Crystallization. 

Natural solids present us with a variety of properties usually 
termed secondary, many of which are of the utmost importance ; 
such are hardness and softness, elasticity, toughness, malleability, 
tenacity, ductility, &c, all too well understood to require definition 
here. These properties evidently depend in a great degree upon 
original differences in the properties of the component molecules 
themselves ; but there is no doubt that many of them are also inti- 
mately connected with the modes in which the molecules are 
arranged. Of these modes we can form no precise idea in a great 
many instances : there is, however, one form of solid aggregation, 
the regular crystalline form, which has occupied much more atten- 
tion than the rest, and upon this we shall proceed to offer a few 
remarks. 

As an object of illustration we shall select the familiar one of 
water, which from its well known properties of existing either as a 
solid, a liquid, a vapour, or a gas, by a slight variation of circum- 
stances, is well adapted for our purpose, as we are thus enabled to 
employ the same object of illustration throughout. At present we 
have to consider it in its solid form of ice. 

Every one must have remarked that water in the act of freezing 



26 CHEMISTRY. 

assumes various symmetrical forms, shooting into specula?, &c, as 
may be beautifully seen on our windows on a frosty morning. Now 
this affords a familiar instance of what is termed crystallization, a 
property apparently possessed by all ponderable matter, and readily 
exhibited by it when under favourable circumstances : and it has 
been remarked that the form assumed by the same matter is usually 
similar, or easily deducible from some common form according to 
well ascertained and obvious laws. Let us now briefly inquire into 
the properties which the ultimate molecules of water must be sup- 
posed to possess to enable them to form these symmetrical aggrega- 
tions. In the first place it is evident that the simple supposition of 
mutually attractive forces between these molecules, analogous or 
identical with the forces of gravitation, is inadequate to explain the 
phenomena. Possessed of such properties alone the ultimate mole- 
cules of bodies might indeed be imagined to adhere together,, and 
their aggregations might even exhibit something like regularity, but 
this regularity would in a great measure be accidental, and proba- 
bly never twice alike ; hence the utmost latitude of assumption would 
never enable us to explain upon such principles alone that sameness 
of figure above alluded to as always assumed by the same matter. 
It is obvious, therefore, that the ultimate molecules of bodies are in- 
fluenced by other powers than those of simple inertia and attraction : 
what is the nature of these powers ? On this point there have been 
various opinions. Some have supposed the ultimate particles of 
bodies to possess shapes identical with those of the aggregates, which 
they form; that a crystal, for example, whose shape. is a cube, is 
formed by the aggregation of a number of infinitely little cubes, &c. 
But to others this supposition has appeared so improbable, and so 
unlike the usual simplicity of nature's operations, that they have re- 
jected it, and have formed the more feasible hypothesis, that the ulti- 
mate molecules of bodies are either spheres, or spheroidal, that is to 
say, more or less, virtually globular.* Let us take it for granted then 
that the ultimate molecules of bodies are spheres, with what powers 
is it necessary to suppose these little spheres to be invested in order 
to enable them to cohere and form the symmetrical figures we ob- 
serve among natural bodies'? The existence of simple, mutual, and 
general attractive powers among such a set of molecules, has been 
already observed to be inadequate to explain the phenomena : there 
must be some specific powers determining similar particles, to com- 

* Strictly speaking, perhaps this observation is applicable to the forms supposed 
to be assumed by the influences surrounding the molecules, and by which all their 
operations arc directed, rather than to the absolute forms of the molecules them- 
selves, which, though in all instances virtually ejeertingf spheroidal influences, must, 
in different instances, have vtwy different forms. Those who wish to study the 
principles upon w Uielr spheroidal molecules maybe supposed to Aggregate into 
crystalline forms, are referred t<> Dr. Wollaston's interesting paper on the Bubject 
in ill- Philos. Trans. 1813, p. 51. it may be noticed, however, thai the principles 
here advanced differ materially in other respects from those referred to. 



CRYSTALLIZATION. 



27 



Fig. 1. 



Fig. 2. 




yzryj. 



bine in similar ways, otherwise the same resulting forms could not 
be supposed to take place. In the. three 
small spheres,* (Fig. 1.) let us suppose the 
points Ee, Ee, Ee, on their superflces to 
be endowed with the following properties, 
viz. that the similar points E, E, E, and 
e, e, e, have the property of mutually re- 
pelling each other, while the dissimilar Ee, Ee, Ee, have 
the property of mutual attraction. In such a case the 
three molecules will readily combine E to e, as in Fig. 2, 
but in no other way. Now let us suppose the same 

three spheres to be endowed 
with properties at the points 
Mm, Mm, Mm, as in Fig. 3, 
very similar to those at Ee. 
Spheres so endowed will ag- 
gregate readily, as in Fig. 4. 
E to e and M to m, but in no other way ; 
and thus instead of a single line we obtain a 
plate of molecules one in thickness, f To 
form the third dimension, or to constitute a 
solid, it is necessary to assume the molecules 
as in Fig. 5, to be possessed not only of the 
attractive points Ee, Ee, Ee, Mm, Mm, Mm, 
but also of Mm', Mm', Mm', (the point 
m' , being supposed to be opposite to the 
point M , and out of sight.) Molecules so 
endowed will readily combine as in 
Fig. 6, and form a cube or some figure 
obviously deducible from it, but in no 
other manner; and in this way by as- 
suming certain attractive and repul- 
sive points upon our spheres at appro- 
priate parts of their superflces, it is 
not difficult to conceive them capable, 
in different instances, of forming ag- 
gregates of any shape whatever. The 
next point to be considered is, how far 
are we authorised in making such ap- 
parently complicated and gratuitous 
assumptions respecting the properties 
of the ultimate molecules of matter; 




* Or rather sections of spheres, and the same is to be understood of all the sub- 
sequent figures. 

f Here it is to be observed that the similar poles E E, e e, of each pair of mole- 
cules being- supposed to be repellent within certain limits, as will hereafter be ex- 
plained, their absolute contact is prevented, and the two molecules are balanced, 



28 CHEMISTRY. 

are there any phenomena in nature justifying such conclusions, and 
what are they 1 And this leads us to inquire further, but as briefly 
as possible, into the phenomena of aggregation, as we see them con- 
stantly going on around us. 

Aggregation is usually considered as of two distinct kinds, viz. 
that depending upon the simple cohesion of similar molecules of 
matter, as of water, and which for the present may be supposed to 
undergo no change by the combination ; and that depending upon 
the union of dissimilar molecules of matter, capable of exerting a 
mutual chemical change upon each other, in which case the aggre- 
gate is a tertium quid, or third something differing altogether from 
either of the original molecules composing it. Now both these kinds 
of aggregation obviously exist in the same substance, at least when 
in the solid form. In the first place the chemical aggregation is 
exerted between the heterogeneous molecules, (hydrogen and oxygen 
in the present case of water) which uniting, form compound homo- 
geneous molecules, (of water); while in the next place, the molecules 
of water uniting chemically in one direction and cohesively in the 
other, form the solid crystal (of ice). Hence chemical aggregation 
and cohesive aggregation are as distinct as the polarities themselves 
upon which they depend ; and if the one existed alone without the 
other, no such thing as a regular crystalline solid would probably be 
formed in nature. 

From the above views, of molecular forces, it follows as a conse- 
quence that every molecule, and crystalline aggregate of molecules, 
must possess one axis (as that, for instance, joining the polarities E e 
in the preceding figures,) having totally different powers and pro- 
perties from the other two axes and polarities. This axis, by way 
of distinction, may be called the chemical axis and polarities. The 
other two axes (and indeed every other axis that can be supposed 
to be drawn, through the centre, from opposite points of the super- 
fices of the molecule) probably possess common properties, and 
may be called the cohesive axes and polarities. Here then the ex- 
istence of two forces is indicated, the one axial, the other equatorial, 
if we may be allowed the expressions. The next question is, do 
such forces actually exist in nature on the large scale, and what are 
these forces? Now late observations have proved, beyond a doubt. 
that the elective and magnetic are such forces. We proceed, there- 
fore, to take a short view of electricity and magnetism.* 

as it were, between the two opposing and the two attracting forces. The conside- 
ration of forces operating in these and in the other modes, subsequently mentioned, 
present, some highly interesting and novel objects of research for the mathematician. 
• It may he remarked, that as all parts of the supeifices of our molecules, i \- 
ccpt the chemical poles, are supposed to be mere or less capable of cohesion, their 
aggregation in the form of common crystallized solids may be readilj conceived. 
With respect to the cohesion, (if we ma) be allowed the expression) of the diffe- 
rent chemical poles E e, of similar molecules with each other, such cohesion seems 
to be proved by several circumstances, which it would he foreign to our purpose 
at present to inquire into; hut of which, perhaps, the optical properties oi crystals 
will hereafter form one of the most striking illustrations. 



ELECTRICITY. 29 

Electricity. — It would be foreign to our present purpose to enter 
into details respecting this or any other department of science we 
may have occasion to allude to : hence we shall content ourselves 
with a short summary of its general principles. It seems to be 
satisfactorily proved that the phenomena of electricity depend upon 
two energies, usually existing throughout nature in a state of equili- 
brium, in which state their peculiar powers are not perceptible ; that 
this equilibrium is capable of being destroyed by a variety of causes, 
as friction, &c. ; and that owing to the different capacities possessed 
by different bodies, for conducting and retaining them, these ener- 
gies can be partially separated and kept asunder, in which state 
they are capable of exhibiting their peculiar powers. These powers 
are such, that if two bodies charged in excess with the same energy 
be brought into the vicinity of each other, they mutually repel each 
other; while two bodies charged with the two different energies 
mutually attract each other. In this disturbance of the equilibrium 
of the two energies, it is to be remarked, that in no instance do we 
suppose that the two energies are, or can be, entirely separated, so 
as to reside each, per se, in different bodies ; but that a portion of 
the energy of the one body goes to the other body, which at the 
same time returns a corresponding portion of its antagonist energy ; 
hence, other things being equal, each body contains the same total 
quantity of the two electricities as before the equilibrum was de- 
stroyed. For the sake of the general reader, the matter, in short, 
may be represented numerically as follows : — Let us suppose that 
2000 balls, all exactly of the same size, &c, but one half black and 
the other half white, are divided into two equal groups, a and b, of 
1000 balls each, but in such a way that the group a shall contain 
200 black and 800 white balls, and the group b 800 black and 200 
white balls. In this case the two groups will correspond exactly 
with two bodies in different states of electricity ; and (supposing 
them to be possessed of similar powers), if a third group, c, con- 
taining 200 black and 800 white balls be brought into the neigh- 
bourhood of the group a, which is similarly constituted, the two 
will be found mutually to repel each other, till they approach within a 
certain distance, that is to say, till the 200 black balls of each group 
come into action, and unite each with 200 white balls. At this dis- 
tance they will no longer repel but attract each other ; although, in- 
stead of forming a state of equilibrium, the white balls (or one of 
the electric energies,) will predominate. The same thing precisely 
may be supposed to happen if a fourth group, d, composed of 800 
black and 200 white balls, be brought into the neighbourhood of the 
group b. But if the group a, containing 200 black and 800 white 
be brought into the neighbourhood of the group b, containing 800 
black and 200 white, the two will attract each other, and combine 
to form the original group of 2000 balls, consisting of 1000 of each 
kind, as at first supposed. 

3* 



30 CHEMISTRY. 

Such are, we believe, the fundamental laws of action and equili- 
brium of the two electric energies. There is one circumstance im- 
mediately arising out of them, which, as it is the most frequent and 
important of all the causes disturbing the natural equilibrium of the 
two energies in different bodies, we shall briefly explain : we allude 
to what are usually called the phenomena of induction. Suppose an 
electrified body a, (that is to say, a body having the equilibrium of its 
electric energies destroyed, as above mentioned,) be brought into 
the neighbourhood of another body, b, in its natural state, what takes 
place? The electricity e, of the body a, acting upon the corre- 
sponding electricity e, in the body b, repels it to the furthest extre- 
mity of the body b; and at the same time attracts to that end of the 
body b which is nearest to the body a, the other and opposite elec- 
tricity e. The body b, therefore, while under the influence of the 
body a, will exhibit all the phenomena of electricity, and is said to 
be electrified by induction; but remove this body b from the neigh- 
bourhood of the body a, and immediately the natural equilibrium of 
the energies of the body b will be restored, and all signs of electri- 
city will vanish. In this experiment neither of the bodies gains or 
loses anything. As these phenomena are constantly occurring in 
nature, and as we shall have frequent occasion to use the term in- 
duction, we have endeavoured to convey an idea of the nature of 
the subject to the general reader. 

Of Galvanism. — While we are upon the subject of electricity, we 
may briefly notice that important modification of it termed galva- 
nism. This form of electricity, instead of being evolved by friction, 
is usually obtained by the mutual action of various metals and 
chemical agents upon each other. Late experiments, however, have 
shown that the energies thus developed, differ in no respect from 
those of common electricity, but that they are obtained in this way 
in much greater quantity only, though in a lower state of intensity 
than by the common machine ; and that many of the supposed pe- 
culiar effects of galvanism are the consequences of the ??wtion of such 
large quantities of these energies, through bodies of various conduct- 
ing powers. Galvanism has recently attracted much more atten- 
tion than ordinary electricity, from the facility with which it may lie 
applied to the purposes of the chemist, and from the extraordinary 
light it has thrown upon many chemical phenomena. Indeed, the 
chemist has been more indebted to the energies of galvanism than 
to any other; and he will probable be still further indebted to them 
than he yet has been. With respect to the phenomena of galva- 
nism, these in most respects, so closely resemble the phenomena of 
electricity, that they do not require further illustration here. 

Of Magnetism. — The general phenomena and laws of magnetism 
are very analogous to those of electricity. There are evidently two 
antagonist energies, which, while in a state oi' equilibrium} are not 
cognisable ; but when separated, each one is mutually repellent of 



ELECTRICITY AND MAGNETISM. 31 

its similar, and mutually attractive of its opposite or antagonist. 
Thus the two north or two south poles of two magnetic needles 
mutually repel each other (with the same exceptions as the two 
electric poles), but the north pole of one needle the south pole 
of another, mutually attract each other. Bodies are also rendered 
magnetic by induction when in the vicinity of another magnet, 
precisely as happens with respect to electricity. Magnetism princi- 
pally differs from electricity in being apparently limited to a few 
bodies, as iron, and two or three others ; but late observations have 
thrown an entirely new light on this part of the subject, which we 
have next to consider. Before we proceed, however, we may make a 
few remarks upon the obvious questions: — What becomes of the two 
electric and two magnetic energies when in a state of equilibrium'? 
Do the electric and magnetic energies combine to yield the same, or 
a different result, and what is the nature of this result or results, and 
in what form do they exist around us? On these points different 
opinions have been held: some supposing that by their union, both 
the electric and the magnetic energies alike constitute heat; others 
something else. That both are most intimately connected with heat 
and light, is evident ; but at present we decline to give a decided 
opinion on the subject. 

We come now to consider the relations of electricity and of mag- 
netism to one another — a discovery which we owe to Oersted, and 
one of the most important that has been made in the present age. 
The following is a summary of these relations. Let us suppose, in 
the annexed figure E e, to represent the wire connect- Fig. 7. 
ing the zinc and the copper terminating plates of a gal- ) zinc \ 
vanic battery in action. From what has been said, it 
may be conceived that under these circumstances there 
w r ill be two currents moving through this wire in oppo- M<- 
site directions; (from the copper to the zinc, usually 
called positive electricity, which may be supposed to 



E 



be represented by our black balls in the previous illus- I Copper I 
tration; and from the zinc to the copper, usually termed negative 
electricity, which may be represented by our white balls). Now in 
this state of things it has been satisfactorily established by experi- 
ment, that besides these two currents, there are two others having 
totally different properties, indeed all the properties of the magnetic 
energies, moving, not in the direction of the wire, but in circles, or 
rather spirals, round it. The energy corresponding to the north 
pole of the magnetic needle moves from right to left, round the wire, 
as above posited, while the energy corresponding to the south pole 
of the magnet moves in the opposite direction, or from left to right. 
Hence when a delicate magnetic needle Mm, is placed above the 
wire E e, its north pole M, will be attracted by the current moving 
from left to right, with which it comes first in contact; and its south 
pole, for similar reasons, will be attracted by the opposite current. 



32 



CHEMISTRY. 



A needle so placed will consequently assume the direction repre- 
sented in the figure, with its north pole M to the left ; and if it be 
carried round the wire by its point of suspension, it will be always 
found to keep the same relative position with respect to the wire. 
Thus^when below the wire, the needle will apparently point in the 
opposite direction; when on the same level, on the left hand, verti- 
cally downwards ; when on the right, upwards. 

Bearing in mind these relative positions of the currents and needles, 
in what follows we may neglect the currents and judge from the 
position of the needles alone. Let us consider the case of two con- 
necting wires placed by the side of each other, as in the figures an- 
nexed, and which wires may be supposed to represent the chemical 

Fig. 8. Fig. 9. 



Jf 



-m M<- 



Cuppe-r | 



Zinc 



Copper 



M<r 



e 
Copper 



We 
I Copper 



->Af 



I Zinc 



axis of our molecules. Now these wires, in consequence of the 
magnetic energies circulating round them, will mutually attract or 
repel each other, according to their position. If as in fig. 8, they are 
both in the same relative position, they will mutually attract each 
other, as may be inferred from the position of the needles, Mm, J\I?n, 
the north pole of one of which corresponds with the south pole of the 
other; but if one of the wires be reversed, as in fig. 9, they will mu- 
tually repel each other, the two similar poles of the needles in this 
case being contiguous. These relations hold universally, and what 
is. most important, recent observations have shown them to be re- 
ciprocal ; that is to say, if the magnetic energies be made to move 
in straight lines, the galvanic energies are found to circulate round 
them precisely in the way, and according to the laws above de- 
scribed as happening to magnetism round electricity. Hence elec- 
tric sparks, and indeed all the phenomena of electricity can now be 
obtained from a common magnet. 

Whether electricity and magnetism be different forms of the same 
energies resulting from the different directions of their motions — 
whether they be distinct energies — whether they be the cause or the 
effect of Polarity, we shall not stay to inquire; it is sufficient for our 
present purpose to know that they arc inseparably associated with 
one another in the manner stated, and are always present at least 
in, if they be not the immediate cause of, all molecular actions 
among ponderable bodies. And this brings us back to the point. 
where we digressed to consider the subjects df electricity and mag- 
netism. 



POLARIZATION, ELECTRICITY, ETC. 33 

We attempted to show that the ultimate molecules of matter must 
possess two kinds of Polarity; one which we have denominated 
chemical polarity, of a binary character, and existing between 
molecule and molecule, chiefly when of different kinds; and another 
denominated cohesive polarity, determining, under certain circum- 
stances, molecules of the same matter to cohere. We further at- 
tempted to explain how these polarities (each supposed to be con- 
nected by its own proper axis) must exist or be distributed in our 
molecules so as to fulfil the offices assigned to them, and which they 
evidently fulfil in nature. Lastly, we have shown that the electric 
and magnetic polarities or energies are actually related to one an- 
other, precisely in the same way that we supposed the chemical 
and cohesive polarities to be. The question then at once arises, — 
are these forces identical? Do the electric polarities correspond 
with the supposed chemical polarities, and the magnetic with the 
cohesive polarities of our molecule ? 

To us, we have no hesitation in saying, this conclusion seems very 
probable, nay, almost inevitable, not only for the reasons stated, but 
for others equally striking, that we shall have occasion to refer to 
hereafter. In the mean time we may briefly consider the subject 
with a little more attention, and principally with reference to some 
apparent objections that may be raised against it. In the first place 
it may be objected that it is difficult from what we know of the 
varying and capricious character of the electric energies, to suppose 
that they can ever exist in that definite and permanent form in 
which they must exist if they be really identical with the cause of 
chemical affinity. To this objection, it may be replied, that mag- 
netism can and does exist permanently in bodies for ages, and as 
electricity is an inseparable attendant upon magnetism, this energy 
must also have equal permanence. Again, a portion of zinc and a 
portion of copper placed in contact produce electrical effects as con- 
stant and enduring as the metals themselves. The argument, there- 
fore, founded upon the want of permanence, and uniformity of the 
electric and magnetic energies, cannot, if duly considered, be sup- 
posed to have any weight ; for the molecule may be conceived to be 
composed of two parts analogous to the copper and zinc in contact, 
and the electricity and accompanying magnetism evolved may be 
supposed to be as permanent in their character as the parts of the 
molecule evolving them. To the argument that electricity and 
magnetism, as we are acquainted with these energies, are inadequate 
to produce the effects and explain the phenomena of che nical 
affinity and cohesion, it may be replied, that they may be so : but 
that these energies, as we are acquainted with them, are probably 
merely accidental and peculiar modifications of the real energies, 
which in their elementary form, may be something altogether differ- 
ent, and quite unknown to us. In proof of this notion, it may be ob- 
served, that the electricities of the common machine and of the gal- 



34 CHEMISTRY. 

vanic machine apparently differ materially ; while that existing in 
certain animals appears to differ from both. The magnetism 
evolved by electricity differs also slightly from common magnetism, 
yet no one now doubts that these differences arise from varieties in 
the quantity and intensity of the same energies, whieh in their ele- 
mentary form, therefore, may, and probably do, differ from all these 
varieties. At any rate, we are unable to say that one of these va- 
rieties is more elementary than another, and consequently we have 
no right to assume that either of them is elementary, much less to 
found any argument upon the assumption. 

Before we quit this subject of polarities and polarizing forces, it 
may not be amiss, in the last place, to make a few general remarks 
on the points in which they resemble or differ from those of gravi- 
tation. 

The forces of gravitation, inertia and attraction, appear to be asso- 
ciated, and to reside in every individual atom of matter in the uni- 
verse ; hence every atom mutually attracts and is attracted by every 
other atom. The polarizing forces, on the other hand, are evidently 
disassociated, and reside in different parts of the same mass; hence 
this mass can in no instance be a mathematical point, (or atom ?), but 
must consist of at least two parts; hence, also, as all matter appears 
to possess polarity, matter must exist in the state of mass or molecule, 
each of which molecules must occupy actual space. Thus the 
forces of gravitation and those of polarization are quite distinct. The 
forces of gravitation are primordial, and probably co-existent with 
matter ; while the forces of polarization have more of a derivative 
or resultant character, and are evidently subordinate to those of 
gravitation. The question here naturally arises, — Are these dif- 
ferent forces related to one another % Do the forces of polarization 
consist of the forces of gravitation in a state of separation, (if we 
may be allowed the expression.) or do they result from the motion 
of the molecules upon their axes \ These are questions quite beyond 
our powers, — indeed we have nothing to do with them, — our pre- 
sent object being merely to point out the apparent limits within which 
the Deity has chosen to confine his operations. 

Section IV. 

Of the Liquid Form of Bodies. Of Heat. 

Hitherto we have spoken of the aggregation of molecules in the 
solid form only; we have next to consider their arrangement in that 
state in which they constitute a liquid. Our notion of a tluid, gene- 
rally speaking, is, that all its parts or molecules, instead of being 
fixed, arc perfectly moveable among one another; our notion o( 
a liquid (the least perfect form of fluidity) is, that its molecule! are 
incompressible. Now, still retaining water as our example of a 



OF HEAT. 35 

liquid, let us consider what must happen to its molecules situated, as 
we suppose them to be, in the form of ice, before they can be so 
arranged as to constitute the liquid water. A moment's eflection 
teaches us that they must be loosened or separated from each other ; 
and, as they cannot separate themselves, that some new agency is 
requisite for the purpose. It need scarcely be mentioned that this 
agent is heat; on the general phenomena and laws of which most 
important principle we now proceed to make a few remarks. 

The sensations termed heat and cold are too well known to require 
explanation. These sensations, however, like all others, are merely 
the effects of some external cause or causes, operating on and 
through our organs, in a manner totally unknown to us. Various 
opinions have been entertained on the subject ; some considering the 
cause of heat (caloric) to be an existent and material fluid, though 
of such extreme tenuity and imponderability as to escape our ob- 
servation, and to become manifest to us only by its effects upon our 
sensations, and upon all the ponderable forms of matter ; others 
considering it not as material, but as a property or principle of mo- 
tion, which by exciting a certain species of vibration among the 
particles of bodies causes the sensations and effects of heat. Such 
are • the most usual opinions, and the probability is, that they are 
neither of them literally correct, but that heat, and we may add 
light, are substances, the molecules of which are influenced by 
polarizing forces precisely similar in all respects to those which in- 
fluence common matter; that is to say, that the molecules of heat 
and of light obey laws, similar in all respects to those which govern 
the molecules of ponderable bodies.* We have already alluded to 
the opinion maintained by some, that heat is a compound principle 
(like water for instance), consisting of a union of the two forms of 
electricity. We now draw the attention of the reader to this hypo- 
thesis, in order to state, that whatever heat may consist of besides, 
it is almost impossible to explain its effects upon the polarizing 
forces, without supposing that it at least involves, if it do not pass 
into the electric forces, upon which the polarizing forces appear to 
us to depend. We have said appear, for as has been already stated, 
though it is convenient to consider the polarizing forces under the 
forms of electricity and magnetism, in which they are most usually 
and palpably manifested to us among ponderable bodies, yet, in their 
elementary form these forces may in reality be something very- 
different, not only from those of electricity and magnetism, but from 
all others with which we are acquainted; while electricity and 

* We are aware that this opinion is opposed to that of most mathematicians, 
who favour the undulatory theory of light, and with good reason, so far as they 
have occasion to consider it ; but we are decidedly of opinion that the chemical ac- 
tion of light can be explained only upon chemical principles, whatever these may 
be. Whether these chemical principles will hereafter explain what is now so 
happily illustrated by undulae, time must determine. 



36 CHEMISTRY. 

magnetism, themselves, may be nothing more than the effects of 
these elementary forces upon the subtle matters of which the electric 
and magnetic molecules are composed. 

One of the most general effects of heat is the increase of volume 
which it produces in all bodies in which it is accumulated. There 
are a few exceptions to this law, and one of so curious and impor- 
tant a character as to require especial notice hereafter. In the 
mean time, however, the generality of the law may be taken for 
granted, and an attentive comparison of what has preceded and 
follows, will perhaps throw some light upon the nature of this phe- 
nomenon. 

Fig. 10. Let us suppose Fig. 10, to represent, as in our 

■£ JL former illustrations, two molecules of ice, with 

/ y_ j jv the chemical axes E e, E e, parallel and similar. 

' \ j "7T j In this state their cohesive polarities will be dis- 

r< ^^~e similar, and the molecules, of course, will cohere 

as represented. Let us now suppose, from some external source, a 
certain quantity of heat to be communicated to these molecules. 
The natural tendency of heat is usually considered to be to arrange 
itself in the form of an atmosphere, around the 
molecules as in Fig. 11; the consequence of 
which is, that their apparent temperature is raised 
a certain quantity, and they will be separated 
from each other in some slight degree ; they will 
thus occupy more space than in Fig. 10, before the addition of heat ; 
the cohesion between the parts M m will also at the same time be 
diminished. And here it may be proper to notice an important fact, 
that the same quantity of heat when introduced into different bodies 
produces very different apparent temperatures and effects, and that 
this constitutes what is called by chemists their capacity for heat, or 
their specific heat Thus if the same quantity of heat, which we 
supposed to have been introduced into two molecules of ice, had 
been introduced into two molecules of silver, their apparent tem- 
perature would have been raised more than ten times as much as 
that of the molecules of ice ; hence in the case of the ice some of 
the heat must have disappeared, or become, in the language of 
chemists, latent, a most important property of heat which we have 
next briefly to inquire into. Previously, however, it may not be 
amiss to observe, that the molecules of heat are supposed to be 
vastly less than those of any ponderable substance; and that they 
may thus, without any incongruity, be supposed capable of forming 
an atmosphere around the ponderable molecules, which they could 
not otherwise of course be imagined to do. 

The latency of heat appears to depend upon two totally different 
phenomena, or rather, properly speaking, is of two distinct kinds, as 
may be thus illustrated. Let us take the two bodies above alluded 
to — ice and silver; these under the same volume contain very un- 




CAPACITY FOR HEAT, ETC. 37 

equal portions of matter, the silver being ten times as heavy as the 
ice. The vacuities in the ice, therefore, must be very much greater 
than those in the silver; hence, when the same quantity of any prin- 
ciple, capable of occupying such vacuities, as heat may be supposed 
to be, is introduced equally into both, very dissimilar apparent effects 
must be produced. The more porous body will absorb and con- 
dense within its vacuities the added principle, and leave but little ex- 
ternal and sensible ; while the less porous body, having less room 
among its pores, will exhibit a larger quantity external and sensible. 
The more porous body, therefore, may be said to have a greater 
capacity for heat than the less porous body, from its greater power 
of absorbing heat, and rendering it latent* This, we believe, is the 
usual explanation of the phenomenon under the assumed circum- 
stances, and it is probably correct to a certain extent : but there is 
obviously another form of latent heat, totally different from the 
above, and which evidently cannot be explained on the same prin- 
ciples, and this we have now to consider. Let us suppose that into 
a mass of ice, cooled considerably below the freezing point, a uni- 
form and regular flow of heat be determined from some external 
source ; the temperature of the ice, of course, will gradually go on 
increasing till it rise up to the freezing point ; it will then suddenly 
stop, and remain stationary till a quantity of heat, equal to 140 de- 
grees of the thermometer, have flowed into the ice. The ice has 
now become water ; but up to that point the water still retains the 
original temperature of the ice ; after that point, however, if the 
heat continue to be applied, the water acquires apparent temperature 
as before. Now in this experiment a quantity of heat equal to 140 
degrees of the thermometer has actually disappeared ; but this dis- 
appearance cannot be explained in the same manner as that above 
mentioned ; for the water, instead of being greater in volume, and 
consequently having greater vacuities than the ice from which it 
was formed, is actually less, and must therefore contain fewer va- 
cuities. How then are the phenomena to be explained ? We com- 
menced our observations upon heat, by alluding to the hypothesis 
that this principle is capable of being decomposed into two energies, 
if not identical with, at least operating in the same way as those of 
electricity. In the above experiment, therefore, we consider that 
the 140 degrees of heat which have disappeared, are decomposed 
and converted into the two polarizing energies ; and that these 
energies thus produced are superadded to the energies already 
existing attached to the molecules of water, and in this way in- 

* This union of heat with ponderable bodies may, perhaps, be considered as 
analogous to the condensation of gaseous bodies by porous substances — a very re- 
markable set of phenomena, which deserve to be much more carefully studied 
than they have been. The absorption of light is probably of a similar nature ; 
and the whole apparently depend upon chemical principles, and probably, if 
studied in connexion, would mutually illustrate each other. 

4 




38 CHEMISTRY. 

crease their total quantity or intensity. The changes induced in 

the relative position of the molecules of water, by this increase of 

intensity in their energies, may be illustrated as follows : — Let Fig. 

Fig. 12. 12> as before, represent the position of two mole- 

cules in the state of ice. Here the similar poles 

/f^T\jfi%. ^ ^ anc * e e ' are °^ course mutually repellent, 
j^C__.Jj|. \ n while cohesion takes place between the dissimilar 

\tj3^\J^r polarities, as shown in the figure. Now suppose 
the polarities, E E, e e, to be suddenly much in- 
creased in intensity, so as to extend beyond the semi-diameter of the 
sphere ; they will of course repel each other, and in such a way 
that the two spheres will revolve on the common axis of adhesion 
M m, and the axes E e, E e, instead of remaining parallel, will be- 
come at right angles to each other, as in Fig. 13 ; or rather as in 

Fig. 13. Fig. 14. Fi g- 14 - In Fi g- 14 > a view is sup- 

posed in the direction of the common 
axes, M m M m, of Fig. 13, in which 
view, of course, E e, E e, are sup- 
posed to represent the chemical axes 
of the two spheres at right angles to 
each other. Hence in the liquid state of bodies the position of the 
axes of adjoining molecules may be supposed to be at right angles, 
or in some position less than right angles and approaching paral- 
lelism. At exact right angles the cohesive polarities are balanced 
and neutralized, so that the points M m have neither a tendency to 
unite nor to separate, but remain simply in contact. Hence the 
molecules of such a body will be all disassociated and free to move 
among one another ; and if we suppose each molecule at the same 
time to be surrounded by its atmosphere of caloric, so thin as not 
altogether to remove mechanically the molecules beyond one ano- 
ther's influence, we have probably as clear an idea of the nature of 
a liquid as we are capable of forming. 



Section V. 
Of the Third or Gaseous Form of Bodies. 

We have next to consider the most perfect form of fluidity, that 
of gas, or (adhering to our former example,) steam: and wo shall, 
in the first place, take a short view of the molecular arrangement of 
bodies existing in the gaseous form, which will enable us still further 
to elucidate the subject of latent heat. 

Let us suppose as before, the same constant stream o( heat to be 
flowing into a portion of water that we supposed to be flowing into 
the ice: the water continues to increase in temperature and capacity 
for heat till it arrives at the boiling point; at this moment the tern- 




GASEOUS FORM OF BODIES. 39 

perature ceases to be augmented, however much we may urge the 
application of heat, and the water is converted into a transparent 
gas, well known by the name of steam ; to effect this latter purpose, 
however, under the ordinary circumstances of atmospheric pressure, 
it has been found that nearly 1000 degrees of heat are necessary, 
which large quantity of heat actually becomes latent or disappears, 
since the temperature of the steam formed never exceeds 212°, that 
of the water at the boiling point. What becomes of these 1000 de- 
grees of heat ? We may suppose one portion of it to become latent in 
the first two ways described above ; that is to say the water in the 
act of being converted into vapour, is much augmented in volume, 
and into this augmented volume, as into a sort of vacuum, a portion 
of the heat may be supposed to rush and become insensible ; but 
another portion of heat is obviously decomposed, and goes to aug- 
ment the molecular polarities of the water, which in the case of 
steam (and in all gases,) may be imagined to be arranged in some 
such way as the following : — 

In Fig. 15, we have represented as before, 
though in a different manner, the chemical axes at 
right angles to each other ; at which angle the 
cohesive polarities are balanced and neutralized. 
This angle, therefore, may be considered as the 
point at which liquidity terminates and perfect 
fluidity begins. The next augmentation of heat increases the che- 
mical polaric intensities still further, so as to induce them to repel (or 
rather to attract) each other's axes into the parallel position, 
Fig. 16; where the chemical polarities are quite 
reversed, and of course, the contiguous cohesive 
polarities m and m are brought into the maximum 
state of repulsion. Now such a position, or some 
angle greater than a right angle, may be supposed 
to be that assumed by the chemical axes of the 
molecules of all bodies when in the gaseous state. Hence, as there are 
two kinds of attraction, so there must likewise be two kinds of re- 
pulsion, viz. heterogeneous or chemical repulsion ; and homogene- 
ous, or self-repulsion, opposed to cohesion, upon which the gaseous 
form of bodies principally depends. 

But here a question arises: in what state are the molecules of 
bodies in the condition of vapour, as those of water at all tempera- 
tures below 212°; for instance at 32°? According to an hypothesis 
to be presently mentioned, a given volume of steam, at 2*12°, con- 
tains the same number of self-repulsive molecules as a similar vo- 
lume of air under the same temperature and pressure, and therefore 
has the same elasticity. But the elasticity of the vapour of water at 
32° is only equal to about l-5th of an inch of mercury;* hence the 

• The elastic force of vapours increases with their temperatures ; that is to say, 
according to our hypothesis, increases with the angle formed by the chemical axes 




40 CHEMISTRY. 

same given volume of that vapour at 32° will only weigh about 
1-I50th of what steam ought to weigh, supposing it could exist as a 
permanent gas at 32°, and under a pressure of thirty inches of mer- 
cury. The molecules of the vapour, consequently, will be five or 
six times further apart than in perfectly gaseous bodies under a simi- 
lar temperature and pressure.* 

Let us now, in the last place, inquire how the above suppositions 
respecting gaseous bodies accord with their common leading pro- 
perties, viz., with their self-repulsive or diffusive properties ; their 
equable expansion by heat ; their increase in volume in the inverse 
proportion of the force with which they are compressed ; and with 
their similar capacities for heat. 

Of the diffusion of Gaseous Bodies. — For the facts connected with 
this most important subject we are principally indebted to Dr. Dalton 
and to Mr. Graham ; the latter of whom has shown that when any 
gas or air is confined in a vessel furnished with a very narrow aper- 
ture or with a porous plug, an interchange between the confined and 
the external airs immediately begins to take place through the com- 
municating aperture ; and that this interchange continues to go onto 
a certain point, which, with respect to the same gas, appears to be uni- 
form, but differs in different gases according to a certain law. Two 
gases also, whatever may be their specific gravities, and however they 
may be introduced into the same vessel, speedily become mixed uni- 
formly throughout. These facts evidently indicate a species of self-re- 
pulsive influence among the molecules of the same gas, which ap- 
pears to be satisfactorily accounted for by our hypothesis. The ar- 
gument is very simple and obvious : Two molecules of the same 
matter have a tendency to cohere and to form a solid, when the 
chemical polarities of these molecules are similarly arranged, and 
do not extend beyond the semi-diameters of the molecules ; but two 
molecules of different matter, under circumstances precisely alike, 
remain passive, and have no tendency to cohere. Hence, while two 
molecules of the same matter, having the intensity of their polarities 
much increased, and their chemical poles, consequently, reversed, 
repel each other, or become se/f-repulsive ; two molecules of differ- 
ent matter, still retaining their mutual passiveness, do not repel each 
other. 

of their molecules. At exact right angles the clastic force is ; at 180° it is equal 
to that of air under similar pressure and temperature. Hence all intermediate elas- 
ticities lie between these two points. 

* Supposing it were possible for steam to exist at "2°, of course at this tempera- 
ture its weight would bear to that of air, the same proportion it bears at 212°, that 
is to say, as 5 to 8. Hence 100 cubic inches of steam at 32°, ought to weigh 
20.49375 grains; or 5-8ths of 32-79 gTain9, which is the weight of 100 cubic inches 
dfairat32°. But the weight of 100 cubic inches of steam at 32° is onlj 1S66 
grain, or 1 -150th that of air. The number of molecules, in steam at 32° is conse- 
quently only 1 -150th of those in air at 32°. Hence this diminution of the number of 
molecules, if we suppose them to be diffused equally throughout the Bame space 

of 100 cubic inches, must of course, a8 Stated in the text, cause them to he between 

live and six times further apart 



PROPERTIES OF GASES. 41 

There is reason to believe that these phenomena are not confined 
to bodies perfectly gaseous, but exist also in that less perfect gaseous 
condition termed vapour, of which the vapour of water may be con- 
sidered as the most familiar example. On this supposition, and par- 
ticularly that the above law of diffusion holds among vapours, 
(which is probably the case, though in a modified form) the lower 
the specific gravity of the vapour, that is to say the lower the tempe- 
rature, the greater the diffusive power; and consequently the more 
rapid the evaporation : a most important inference that will enable 
us to explain many meteorological phenomena, at present quite inex- 
plicable. Something very similar, if not identical with the above 
phenomena, also exists in liquids and perhaps in solids. Thus the 
molecules of certain matters diffused through a liquid, as water, may 
be supposed to exert in some cases a self-repulsive influence on each 
other, by which supposition only do their equal diffusion through a 
large mass of liquid seem explicable. Even in the solid state, as 
above observed, something of the kind appears to exist, especially 
among organized bodies, which apparently owe some of their most 
remarkable properties to the diffusion of active self-repulsive mole- 
cules throughout their substance. 

Of the equal Expansion of Gaseous Bodies by Heat. — With re- 
spect to the second important property of gaseous bodies, that under 
the same temperature and pressure they all undergo equal expansion 
by an equal increase of heat ; this seems to be explicable only on the 
supposition that all gaseous bodies, under the same pressure and tempe- 
rature, contain equal numbers of self-repulsive molecules : a most im- 
portant conclusion, as we shall see hereafter, and one, which at 
present we are anxious a little further to illustrate. Supposing the 
fact to be, as it is, undeniable, that within the ordinary limits of ex- 
periment, all perfectly gaseous bodies expand equally by similar in- 
crements of heat, if different gases contain unequal numbers of self- 
repulsive molecules, those gases which contain the least number of 
molecules, must exert the greatest power, and consequently have the 
greatest disposition to expand; in other words, the expansive power 
of the molecules of a gas, must increase as their number diminishes; 
and not only so, but in order to produce the effect stated, the expan- 
sive power must increase, neither more nor less, but exactly as the 
number diminishes — a law which when applied to extreme cases be- 
comes obviously absurd. Further it may be observed, in corrobora- 
tion of the hypothesis advanced, that in the gaseous state the mole- 
cules of bodies may be considered as having undergone the utmost 
effects, that any increase of heat can produce upon them. All their 
interstitial vacuities may be supposed to be already saturated with it ; 
while an atmosphere may be supposed to surround each molecule, 
keeping them individually at a considerable distance from each 
other : their polarities also may be supposed to have undergone their 
ultimate change, so that no more heat can be rendered latent by in- 

4# 



42 CHEMISTRY. 

ducing further changes, except in degree, which degree may le sup- 
posed to be common to all gases. Hence every molecule of mat- 
ter, when in the gaseous state, and subjected to similar pressure and 
temperature, may, without reference to its other properties, be sup- 
posed to be in circumstances exactly similar, and consequently lia- 
ble to be affected in an exactly similar manner by all further incre- 
ments of heat. 

Of the inverse Relation of the Volume to the Compressive Force. — 
Nearly the same remarks apply to this law as to the preceding; for 
were the numbers of molecules in each gas supposed to be unequal, 
the diminution of volume under similar pressure ought to vary also, 
which is not the case, at least in the more perfect gaseous bodies, 
and neither this observation, nor those in the former paragraph apply 
to vapours. 

Of the similar capacity of Gaseous Bodies for Heat. — The best ex- 
periments seem to show that under the same pressure the same 
volumes of all gases have the same capacity for heat — a circum- 
stance quite according with the other phenomena. Hence, for the 
above and other reasons which might be mentioned, we have been 
induced to adopt the hypothesis already stated, that, under the same 
pressure and temperature, all bodies in a perfectly gaseous state con- 
tain equal numbers of self-repulsive molecules.* 

Section VI. 

Other properties of Heat. Of Heat in Motion. 

Heat appears to be in a constant state of motion and of inter- 
change between different bodies, among which it finally settles into 
a state of equilibrium. If accumulated in any body, this accumula- 
tion cannot be preserved ; but the excess will fly on in spite of all 
we can do to the contrary, and sooner or later the equilibrium will 
be restored. This motion of heat takes place in three ways, which 
a common fire-place very well illustrates. If, for instance, we place 
a thermometer directly before a fire, it soon begins to rise, indicating 
an increase of temperature. In this case the heat has made its way 
through the space between the fire and the thermometer, by the pro- 

• It is proper to observe that these views were adopted by the author long bo- 
fore he was aware of the existence of the essays on the subject by Messrs. Avoga- 
dro, Ampere, and Dumas. Indeed he was unacquainted with those of Dumas, 
which most nearly resemble his own, till he saw them alluded to in Mr. Johnson's re- 
cent report on chemistry in the Transactions ofthe British Association. Mr. Donovan 
seems to consider the above hypothesis as untenable ; but we think bis arguments 
entirely inconclusive. See Giomale di Fisica, sec. n. torn. viU. p. l.| Annales do 
Chimic, torn. xc. p. 43 ; a Treatise' on Chemistry, by Mr. Donovan, in l.ardner's 
Cabinet Cyclopaedia, p. 379 ; and the Introduction to Dumas's Traits' de Chimie ap- 

pfiquee SUX Arts, which excellent work the author bad been prevented from pe- 
rusing- by the nature of the title. 



HEAT IN MOTION. 43 

cess termed radiation. If we place a second thermometer in contact 
with any part of the grate, and away from the direct influence of 
the fire, we shall find that this thermometer also denotes an increase 
of temperature ; but here the heat must have travelled through the 
metal of the grate, by what is termed conduction. Lastly, a third 
thermometer placed in the chimney, away from the direct influence 
of the fire, will also indicate a considerable increase of temperature ; 
in this case a portion of the air, passing through and near the fire, 
has become heated, and has carried up the chimney the temperature 
acquired from the fire. There is at present no single term in our 
language employed to denote this third mode of the propagation of 
heat ; but we venture to propose for that purpose, the term convec- 
tion* which not only expresses the leading fact, but also accords 
very well with the two other terms. Each of these modes of the 
propagation of heat possesses certain peculiarities, on which we 
proceed to make a few remarks. 

Radiation of Heat. — Heat radiates in vacuo in all directions 
equally, and with unmeasurable velocity. Heat radiates also through 
all gaseous bodies, and more or less through transparent media. 
Radiation goes on at all temperatures ; but the quantity of heat ra- 
diated in a given time bears some proportion to the excess of the 
temperature of the radiating body above that of the surrounding 
medium. Radiant heat is capable of being reflected like light, (to be 
presently noticed,) and, indeed, obeys altogether somewhat similar 
laws. Those surfaces however, that reflect light most perfectly, 
are not equally adapted to the reflection of heat. Metals in general, 
and particularly when highly polished, are the best reflectors of heat, 
while glass, which reflects light most perfectly, reflects compara- 
tively little heat; thus tin-plate reflects about eight times as much 
heat as a glass mirror. The radiation of heat is much influenced by 
the nature and state of the surfaces of bodies. Thus a surface coated 
with lamp-black radiates eight or nine times as much heat as a po- 
lished surface of tin or silver; and in general polished surfaces, par- 
ticularly of metal, radiate much less than other surfaces. As might 
be expected, this difference of radiating power exerts great influence 
in the cooling of bodies ; thus warm water retains its heat much 
longer in a bright tin vessel, than in the same vessel coated with 
linen, paint, or particularly lamp-black. Radiant heat is absorbed 
with different facilities by different surfaces. The absorbing power 
of surfaces seems, indeed, to vary directly as their radiating power, 
and inversely as their reflecting power. That is to say, surfaces re- 
ceive heat by radiation nearly with the same degree of facility as 
they give it off; while those that reflect most, of course, must absorb 
least; a surface covered w 7 ith lamp-black, for example, receives in a 
given time eight or nine times as much heat by radiation as a po- 

• Convectio, a carrying or conveying 1 . 



44 CHEMISTRY. 

lished tin surface receives. From these remarks, it will be readily 
inferred, that the colours of bodies may have considerable influence 
in the radiation and absorption of heat ; now this is found to be the 
case, and the darker the colour of a body, the more readily it gives 
off, and absorbs radiant heat. Radiant heat has the power of pas- 
sing through transparent bodies, as glass. This power, however, 
varies accordingly to the thickness of the glass, its relative position 
to the radiating body, and a variety of other circumstances not well 
understood; but generally speaking heat seems to obey laws, more 
or less, analogous to those of light under similar circumstances. 

Conduction of Heat. — The conduction of heat is chiefly confined 
to solid bodies ; and as solids exist of every degree of consistency 
and density, from perfect fluidity up to perfect hardness, the con- 
ducting power varies in like manner. Hence the laws of conduction 
and those of radiation have a mutual dependence ; and, in fact, the 
laws of conduction may be considered as only extreme cases of the 
laws of radiation. The conduction of heat through bodies seems to 
take place equally in all directions. In general the densest bodies, 
as metals, stones, hard woods, &c, have the greatest conducting 
power, though these differ exceedingly among one another. Porous 
bodies in general are bad conductors ; and of such bodies charcoal 
may be considered as one of the worst conductors. Among sub- 
stances employed as articles of dress, hare's fur and eider down are 
the worst conductors, and flax the best. The relative conducting 
powers of substances of this class seem to depend much upon the 
quantity of air inclosed within their interstices, and the power of 
attraction by which this air is retained or confined. The conduct- 
ing power of liquids and of gases is very limited, though under 
certain circumstances they appear to possess this power in a high 
degree. But this power is only apparent, and heat is chiefly com- 
municated through liquids, and also through gases by the third pro- 
cess above alluded to, viz. convection. By convection however, 
heat is only propagated in one direction, namely, upwards; hence 
almost any degree of heat may be applied to the upper surface of a 
liquid or gas without affecting the lower. 

Such are the principal phenomena connected with the motion of 
heat ; but before we proceed to speak of the sources of this won- 
derful agent, we have yet to consider another imponderable princi- 
ple of the utmost importance, and intimately connected with heat : 
viz., Light. 



OF LIGHT. 45 

Section VII. 
Of Light 

The laws of the motion of light, of its reflection, refraction, po- 
larization, &c, properly belonging to another department; we shall 
therefore, only briefly describe them here, and endeavour to point 
out the general connexion and analogy they bear to the phenomena 
of chemistry, and more especially to the phenomena of heat and 
electricity. 

Radiation or Motion of Light. — Light radiates or moves in straight 
lines with such inconceivable velocity, that it occupies only about 
eight minutes in travelling from the sun to our earth, so that it must 
move at the rate of nearly 200,000 miles in a second ! At the same 
rate it would occupy about four hours to travel to us from the 
planet Uranus, the present ultima Thule of our system; hence if this 
planet were at any given instant suddenly annihilated, we should 
not miss it for four hours afterwards; and when we look at it, we 
do not see it where it actually is at this instant, but where it was 
four hours previously. A cannon ball, when first shot from the 
cannon, moves with a velocity of between 2000 and 3000 feet per 
second ; supposing, therefore, it could retain its initial velocity it 
would sarcely move in a year as much as light moves in a single 
second ! The utmost velocities of the earth and other planets, in 
their orbits or on their axes, scarcely exceed 30 or 40 miles in a 
second. Hence the utmost velocity that we are acquainted with as 
possessed by ordinary matter, and therefore the utmost perhaps of 
which such matter is capable, only amounts to the 1 -5000th or 
l-6000th of that of light! These striking facts are mentioned with 
the view of conveying some notion of the immensity of space, and 
of the wonderful velocity w T ith which it is in every direction pene- 
trated by light. They seem also to show, that if light be matter, it 
must exist in a state of tenuity, totally different from the ponderable 
matter we are acquainted with, which actually seems incapable of 
such velocity.* 

If we consider heat and light to consist of polarized molecules in 
the self-repulsive state, and to obey the same laws that ponderable 
matters in the gaseous state obey, which is exceedingly probable ; 
the radiation of these imponderable bodies will be analogous to the 
diffusion of gaseous bodies, and by knowing their velocity and ap- 
plying the same law, we may deduce their comparative gravities. 

Reflection and Refraction of Light. — In free space as before ob- 
served, light moves in straight lines; but when a ray, R, Fig. 17, falls 
upon a polished surface, as of glass, a portion of it is reflected in the 

* Pouillet, Elemens de Physique et de Meteorologie, torn. iii. p. 216. 



46 



CHEMISTRY. 




Fig. 17. direction e E, and the angle R e P, 

called the angle of incidence, is al- 
ways equal to the angle P e E, call- 
ed the angle of reflection. Another 
portion, e m, passes through the glass, 
but instead of continuing to move in 
the same straight line, is bent con- 
siderably out of that direction to- 
wards the perpendicular P Q; it then 
makes its exit at m, and goes on in 
the direction of m M, parallel to its 
\ v original direction, R e. This por- 
Q *' tion of the ray is said to have un- 

dergone refraction; a term indicating that its natural course has 
been broken. Such are the general facts; and the study of their 
laws, varieties, and peculiarities, as modified by different media, 
constitutes the science of optics, a branch of knowledge not falling 
within our present design. In connexion with this part of our sub- 
ject, it only remains to observe, that in passing through the most 
transparent bodies much light is lost, by absorption and in other 
ways. So also when light falls upon metallic bodies, such as po- 
lished silver, about one-half only is reflected, while the other half is 
absorbed and lost. Different substances, however, differ materially 
in these respects, and from the experiments of M. Bouguer and M. 
Lambert, it appears that in fluids, transparent solids and metals, the 
quantity of light reflected, increases with the angle of incidence 
reckoned from the perpendicular ; whereas in white opaque bodies 
the quantity of light reflected decreases with the angle of incidence.* 
We shall hereafter have occasion to revert to these curious facts. 
Polarization of Light. — The next property we have to notice is what 

is called the polarization of 
light. Let us suppose Fig. 18, 
to represent a bundle of plates 
of thin window-glass, bound 
together in the manner indi- 
cated. Let R e be a ray of 
light falling on the upper plate. 
at an angle of incidence of 
about 50°; a portion of the 
ray will bo reflected, and will 
move in the direction e /'. 
while another portion o( the 
ray e m, will pass through the 
bundle of glass plates onwards to J\I, according to the laws of 

• Sec article Optics, p. 67, and 68, in the Library of Useful Knowledge. Whore 
the original observations are to be found, which are there referred to, w e do not 
at present know. 




POLARIZATION OF LIGHT. 47 

reflection and refraction already stated. Now these two rays e E, 
and m M, possess remarkable properties, similar to one another in 
most respects, but directl/ opposed in another. Of these properties 
we shall endeavour to give a general idea. 

If the ray of light R A, after falling upon the vertical glass ./?, 
Fig. 19, at an angle of incidence of 56°, be received on a plate of 

Fig. 19. 





glass, C, placed at the same angle of incidence, and be then reflect- 
ed from C to E; in the position intended to be shown in the figure, 
when the ray R is first reflected in a horizontal plane, R A C, and 
then in a vertical plane, ACE, the ray C E becomes so weak as 
to be scarcely visible, the whole of it having passed through the 
glass C. But if the glass C be turned round 90°, (the ray A C 
being supposed to be the axis of motion) so that the ray C E be 
reflected horizontally; instead of passing through the glass C as 
before, the whole of the ray C E will be reflected. If we continue 
to turn the plate C upon the axis A C, round the entire circle, these 
alternations of transmission and reflection will be found to take 
place in the same manner at the two other quadrants 180° and 270°. 
Hence the ray R A, by reflection, has acquired properties altoge- 
ther new; it is said in short, to have acquired polarity, or to have be- 
come polarized. Now recurring to Fig. 18, the ray R e, in that 
figure will of course follow the same laws as the ray R A in Fig. 
19, that is to say, the ray e E will have acquired polarity by reflec- 
tion. Let us now consider what has happened to the refracted ray 
m M in the same Fig. 18. This ray m M will also be found to be 
polarized ; but if we receive it on a glass plate, F G, at the polar- 
izing angle of 56°, we shall find that it will refuse to be reflected ; 
whereas the reflected ray e E does not refuse to be again reflected, 
unless the plate F G be turned round 90°, or into a plane at right 
angles to that plane in which the refracted ray m M had refused to 
be reflected. Hence we conclude that when a ray of light is inci- 
dent at the polarizing angle upon a transparent body, the whole of 
the reflected light is polarized; while the whole of the transmitted 
light is also polarized, but in a plane at right angles to that in which 
the reflected ray is polarized. 

Such is the general law, and it may not be amiss to allude briefly 



48 



CHEMISTRY. 



to another familiar illustration of it. Every one is acquainted with 
the mineral called Iceland spar, and with the singular property 
which this mineral possesses of forming^, double image of objects 
seen through it, or its property of double refraction ; that is to say 
when a ray of light falls on a crystal of such spar in a particular 
direction, the ray is separated into two. Now it is a remarkable 
fact that if these two rays be examined in the way before directed, 
when speaking of reflected and transmitted light, it will be found 
that both are polarized, but that the two rays are polarized in planes 
at right angles to each other; that is to say, the ordinary transmitted 
ray is polarized like the ordinary ray transmitted, through the bundle 
of glass plates; while the extraordinary transmitted ray is polarized 
like the ray reflected from these plates. Many bodies are similarly 
constituted ; while others have two or more planes or axes of dou- 
ble refraction, giving origin to a variety of curious and beautiful 
properties, which it would be quite foreign to our present purpose to 
detail further. 

Decomposition of Light. — When a ray of light, R, Fig. 20, tra- 
verses a prism, CDF, instead of passing onward in the direction 




White 






Y, is refracted into the spectrum E e; which spectrum when re- 
ceived upon the screen, A B, will be found to consist of seven differ- 
ent colours, in the order and of the kind described, each having, of 
course, different refractive powers; the red being the least, and the 
violet the most refracted from the original direction R Y, of the 
solar beam. This oblong image is called the solar, or sometimes, 
the prismatic spectrum, and Sir Isaac Newton found that each colour 
consists of light no longer separable, like white light, into others, 
but having uniform refractive properties: hence he called all the 
seven colours simple or homogeneous, in opposition to white light, 
which he called compound or heterogeneous.* This important fact 
presents a clue to, and exhibits the general law which regulates the 



* Sir David Brewster has lately shown that there are, in fact, but throe simple 
colours, the redt the yellow and the blue, and that each of then colours exists 

throughout the spectrum Hence, probably, like the different electric and mag- 
netic energies, these elementary colours, or, at least, the red and the bhu \ the 
yrllom being probably merely resultant), can never he entire!) separated from 
each other. 



DECOMPOSITION OF LIGHT. 49 

endless variety and change of colours; as bodies appear to have 
this or that colour, according as they have the power of reflecting 
or transmitting this or that colour, and of absorbing or reflecting 
the rest; while white bodies reflect all, and black absorb all. Be- 
sides colour, it has been likewise noticed that different portions of 
the prismatic spectrum possesses different heating and chemical or 
electrical properties. These vary in some respects, according to 
the nature of the prism employed. In general the heating power 
increases towards the red ray; while the chemical power seems to 
be regulated in some degree by the nature of the colour, but is 
greater (though of opposite character) at the two extremities than in 
the centre of the spectrum, where it appears to be nearly null. The 
chemical properties of light, however, are by no means well under- 
stood, and have not received the attention which they merit. 

Upon an attentive consideration of the phenomena of heat and 
of light, and a careful comparison of them with the general phe- 
nomena of polarizing forces, it is impossible not to be struck with 
the close analogy that prevails throughout the whole. The pher 
nomena of heat have hitherto been very imperfectly studied, and 
in consequence we are much less able to trace the analogy ; but 
the phenomena of light from their obvious and striking characters 
have attracted more attention, are much better understood. To en- 
ter further upon the inquiry here would be quite foreign to the object 
of this treatise; we cannot however, in concluding these remarks, 
refrain from repeating an opinion already expressed, that the mole- 
cules both of heat and of light possess polarities precisely similar to 
those of ponderable bodies; and that not only the chemical agencies 
of those principles, but those phenomena of light also at present so 
beautifully illustrated by the hypothesis of undulas, will be hereafter 
found to admit of explanation on the more probable supposition of 
molecular polarity.* 

* In the Newtonian hypothesis of fits of easy transmission and of easy reflection, 
the molecules of light may be regarded as little magnets revolving rapidly round 
their centres while they advance in their course, and thus presenting alternately 
their attractive and repulsive poles. (See Discourse on the Study of Natural 
Philosophy, by Sir J. Herschel, p. 253.) In our hypothesis, the chemical poles of all 
self-repulsive molecules are supposed to be arranged positive and negative alter- 
nately, (see Fig. 16, page 39;) by which arrangement the contiguous cohesive po- 
larities are rendered of the same kind, and consequently repulsive. Hence when 
a series of self-repulsive molecules move onwards in virtue of their self-repulsive 
powers, (as in the radiation of light, &c.) the cohesive axes of the molecules will 
always be in the line of motion, and each successive molecule will present alter- 
nately an opposite polarity; while the chemical axes of course will be all in the 
same plane, and transverse to the line of motion. Such will be the order in a sin- 
gle series of molecules in motion ; but when a number of series move onward 
together, as in homogeneous light, there is reason to conclude that the molecules 
of contiguous series have a tendency to arrange themselves thus .v.w with the 
chemical axes at right angles to each other. Those who are interested in these 
subjects will perhaps readily conceive how such arrangements may be applied to 
explain the various phenomena we have been considering. 



50 CHEMISTRY. 



Section VIII. 

Of the Sources of Heat and Light. 

The principal and obvious sources of heat and light are the sun, 
electricity, mechanical action ; change of physical condition, change 
of chemical condition ; and organic action. 

The sun is the most obvious and unvarying source from which 
both heat and light are communicated to our earth. The nature 
of the sun, however, and the mode in which that wonderful sup- 
ply of heat and light is maintained are quite unknown to us, and 
will probably always remain so. Electricity is another source of 
heat and light which are developed at the moment of the equilibrium 
of the two energies ; and some of the most intense degrees of heat 
and light that have been produced have sprung from a galvanic ap- 
paratus. The sudden condensation of air is likewise a source from 
which heat and light are often both extricated, on principles that it 
will not perhaps be difficult to understand from what has been stated. 
The extrication of heat by percussion and condensation appears to 
be limited, but its extrication by friction seems to be boundless; that 
is to say, so long as friction is kept up, will heat continue to be ex- 
tricated, but whence the heat is derived does not appear to be ca- 
pable of satisfactory explanation, unless we suppose a perpetual de- 
composition and recomposition to take place, which is not improba- 
ble. Another fertile source from which heat is derived, is the phy- 
sical change of condition which bodies are constantly undergoing 
in nature, as for example, the conversion of gases into liquids, of 
liquids into solids, &c. by taking advantage of which conversions 
we can accumulate heat at will, as for instance by the condensation 
of steam. When these physical changes however are associated 
with chemical changes, as is very often the case, the most striking 
effects are produced. Of this kind are all the phenomena of com- 
bustion, the most common source of artificial heat; and which 
consists of nothing more than the rapid chemical union of certain 
bodies with others, and generally with the principle termed oxygen. 
Nearly allied to chemical action, and perhaps identical with it. is 
the extrication of heat by organic changes, or w T hat is termed animal 
heat; a subject we shall have to consider in a future part o( this 
volume. 



We have thus endeavoured to give a summary view of the phe- 
nomena, and laws of motion of heat, and o( light In conclusion it 



RECAPITULATION. 51 

only remains to observe that these phenomena and laws are all of 
the utmost importance in the economy of nature, as constituting 
limitations and principles of action, to which the Great Author of 
nature most rigidly adheres in his operations. Hence, whether we 
view the distribution of heat and of light on the large scale, as re- 
gulating climate ; or whether we view them with reference to the 
most trifling particular, as the clothing of a bud or of an insect ; we 
find the beautiful adaptation and contrivance, everywhere exempli- 
fied, to ensure or to evade the agency of thes6 all-important princi- 
ples. The wonderful arrangements connected with heat and light 
will however fall more naturally to be considered hereafter ; we 
shall therefore defer what we have to say on these subjects till we 
come to speak of meteorology. 

Section IX. 

Recapitulation and General Observations on the Subjects treated of 
in the preceding chapters. 

In the preceding observations we have endeavoured to give a 
connected sketch of the nature and operation of molecular forces ; 
and perhaps it will still further facilitate the understanding of the 
subject, if we recapitulate briefly the leading facts, so as to point 
out those who may not be inclined to peruse the foregoing details, 
the analogy that prevails throughout the whole. 

1. In the first place we attempted to show that the forces which 
determine molecular union can scarcely be those of mere gravitation, 
in their ordinary forms at least; but that some other modification of 
force is necessary to account for the phenomena. 

2. By assuming the molecules of bodies to be virtually spheroidal, 
and endowed with two kinds of polarizing forces, the one operating 
axially, and the other equatorially, we attempted to show how the 
phenomena of simple crystallization might be explained; and we 
corroborated our argument by demonstrating that the electric and 
magnetic forces are actually related to each other, precisely as we 
assumed the energies of our molecules to be. Hence we ventured to 
draw the conclusion, that electricity and magnetism, if not identical 
with, at least represent, or are analogous to those forces, the exist- 
ence of which among ponderable bodies we assumed as necessary 
to account for the phenomena of crystallization. Further we at- 
tempted to render it probable, that the molecules of the imponder- 
able princip'es, heat and light, possess polarities precisely analogous 
to those of ponderable bodies, and that many of their peculiar phe- 
nomena depend upon these polarities. 

3. In attempting to account for the different forms assumed by 
bodies, we suppose that in the solid form, the molecules are so ar- 
ranged as to attract each other according to certain laws ; that in 



52 CHEMISTRY. 

the liquid form, they are so arranged as neither to attract nor repel 
each other ; and that in the gaseous form, the arrangement of the 
energies of the molecules is such as to render them mutually repul- 
sive. Further, by assuming that those molecules which possess the 
property of attracting each other in the solid form in preference to 
others, retain a similar relation in the gaseous form, and repel each 
other in preference to others, we attempted to account for many of 
the well known phenomena of gaseous bodies. 

4. Lastly, we attempted to show that the phenomena of radiation 
among the molecules of imponderable bodies, are precisely analo- 
gous to the phenomena of diffusion and mixture among the mole- 
cules of ponderable bodies when in the liquid and gaseous states ; 
and that consequently the same law T s are strictly applicable to both. 
With respect to the reasons which have induced us thus to enter 
into the dry details of molecular action, and which may seem to 
require some apology to our readers, they are chiefly two-fold: In 
the first place, as connected with the particular business of the pre- 
sent treatise, it has been our object to convey to the general reader 
some idea of the wonderful operations which are constantly taking 
place in every particle of matter which he sees around him, or to 
use the language of Paley, some notion of the " concealed and inter- 
nal operations of the machine." These operations may not be as we 
have represented them ; they may in fact be altogether different ; 
but be this as it will, a perusal however cursory, of what has been 
stated, can hardly fail to accomplish one purpose we had in view, 
viz: to show to the most incurious and superficial reader that in the 
minutest fragment of matter, and in the commonest and simplest 
operations which take place in nature, and which he is altogether 
too apt to overlook, the most wonderful and extraordinary arrange- 
ments, must take place; arrangements which, if duly considered, are 
calculated fully as much, if not more, than those connected with the 
more striking and obvious phenomena, to excite his wonder, and at 
the same time to display the wisdom and power of the great Crea- 
tor. The second object we aimed at, was, as just stated, to give a 
connected and popular sketch of molecular forces and operations ; 
and by placing them in a point of view in which wo believe they 
have not hitherto been considered, to display the beautiful simplicity 
and analogy that prevail throughout the whole. 

Finally, it remains, before we close, to state briefly the arguments 
deducible from the divisibility and molecular constitution v\' matter. 
with reference to our present subject. These arguments may be 
considered under the three following heads ; fust, that matter has 
not always existed in its present form: secondly, it could not have 
existed in its present form by chance; and thirdly, and consequently, 
that if must have been the work of a voluntary and intelligent Be- 
ing. Other deductions might doubtless he made from what has been 



GENERAL ARGUMENTS. 53 

stated, but these we purposely avoid, and confine our arguments as 
much as possible to grounds admitting of no controversy. 

In the first place, the divisibility and molecular constitution of 
matter seem to prove beyond a doubt that it cannot have eternally 
existed in its present state. 

Although we can form no idea of what matter would be without 
its molecular properties, there is yet nothing in these properties 
which can induce us to believe that they are necessary to the mere 
existence of matter. On the contrary, we have seen that matter pos- 
sesses qualities (those of gravitation) of a more primordial kind, to 
which its molecular properties are apparently secondary or subordi- 
nate. But if these subordinate properties be not necessary to the exist- 
ence of matter, matter might possibly at some time have existed with- 
out them. Now this very possibility is incompatible with eternal exist- 
ence ; for eternal (passive) existence necessarily involves incapability 
of change. Hence the molecular constitution of matter, even in this 
point of view, must be supposed to have had a beginning; and when 
we consider the leading and characteristic property of matter in the 
molecular state, viz. the endless repetition of exactly similar parts, 
the difficulty of arriving at any other conclusion is exceedingly in- 
creased. It is to be observed also that the above remarks apply to 
the supposition of only one form of matter ; but we shall see here- 
after that chemists recognise upwards of fifty forms of matter, all of 
an elementary character; at least we cannot at present say that one 
of these forms is more elementary than another. Again, the num- 
ber of molecules in each of these elementary principles, great as it 
is, is limited ; the properties of the molecules also are fixed and defi- 
nite, all which circumstances throw further insurmountable difficul- 
ties in the way of the supposition, that the whole have existed, as 
they now exist, from eternity. For how has it happened, it may be 
asked, that the number and properties of the elements, and the mole- 
cules of which they consist, are just what the economy of nature re- 
quires, and neither greater, nor less, nor different 1 How has it hap- 
pened, that what is supposed to be infinite in some respects, should 
be finite and limited in those respects in which we are actually able 
to trace them ; and what is more, most luckily finite and limited just 
where they appear to be required to be, so? He who can satisfacto- 
rily answer these questions may contend with some prospect of suc- 
cess for the eternity of matter and its properties in their present form. 
In the mean time we assert without fear of contradiction, that the 
molecular constitution of matter is decidedly artificial ; or to use the 
words of a celebrated writer, that the molecules of matter have all 
" the essential characters of a manufactured article,"* and conse- 
quently are not eternal. 

Secondly, if the present molecular constitution of matter has not 

* Sir J. Herschel on the Study of Natural Philosophy, p 38. 
5* 



54 CHEMISTRY. 

always existed, it must have been produced at some time, by some 
cause superior to itself. Now this cause must have operated either 
accidentally and by chance; or voluntarily and under the influence 
of a will. 

With respect to the first of these alternatives, viz. chance ; the 
endless repetition of similar parts presented by the molecular constitu- 
tion of matter seems absolutely to preclude this supposition. Do we 
not consider it a subject of wonder to see even two or three things 
by chance alike, as for example two or three human faces ? Should 
we not consider the man absolutely mad, who would attribute the 
uniform and manoeuvres of a regiment of soldiers to chance ? and 
can we then resist the argument in the infinitely stronger shape in 
which it is here presented to us ! Thus, as the idea of chance seems 
too monstrous to be entertained for a moment by any rational being 
we are driven irresistibly to the other conclusion, viz. that the cause 
or agent who formed the molecular constitution of matter w r as a vo~ 
luntary agent or Being ; and moreover that this Being possessed a 
power commensurate with his will. 

Thirdly ; the agent or Being who constructed the wonderful sys- 
tem we have been considering must have been as intelligent as he 
was powerful. 

We infer intelligence in an agent from the fitness and adaptation 
to certain ends exemplified in his works. Thus, when we see a ma- 
chine admirably fitted for the office it performs, we infer that the 
maker of that machine must have possessed intelligence. Now If 
we judge of the molecular constitution of matter by this rule, we 
shall find that there is not only the most extraordinary fitness and 
adaptation to circumstances displayed in its arrangements, as far as 
we can understand them, but evidently much farther; that is to say, 
the maker of this system must not only have possessed intelligence, 
but intelligence infinitely surpassing our own. Thus at the very be- 
ginning, the selection of the molecular form of matter out of the 
many possible forms which might be supposed to exist, may be con- 
sidered as an instance of intelligence of the highest kind; for this 
alone, of all the forms that can be conceived, seems best adapted to 
the purposes of creation. Indeed, on what other supposition, than 
that of the subdivision of matter into minute similar parts, could all 
those endless operations which we see constantly going on in the 
world, be imagined to take place? Moreover, the nature o( the pow- 
ers with which the molecules of matter are endowed is truly asto- 
nishing, and calculated in the highest degree to impresss us with ex- 
alted notions of the intelligence and power of their contriver. Thus. 
what can be more wonderful, than that the self-same chemical forces 
differently directed should produce, not only all that endless change 
of property, of form, and of condition which we see around as, and 
which are so beneficial and even necessary to our existence; but 
likewise some of the most terrible displays oi' power in nature : as tor 



ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES. 55 

instance, the utmost intensities of heat, of cold, and of light ; the ter- 
rors of the thunderbolt, and the irresistible energies of the earthquake ! 
Nor, on the other hand, are the cohesive affinities existing among the 
molecules of matter much less wonderful or important; for if simi- 
lar molecules had not been constituted with self-attractive and self- 
repulsive powers, there would have been no aggregation of the same 
matter into symmetrical groups, no order or regularity, no separa- 
tion or purity ; in short there would have been no common bond of 
union, and the whole would have been dispersed throughout nature, 
as accident or other circumstances might determine. Hence the 
present order of things could not have existed unless the molecules 
of matter had been endowed with both these properties ; one of 
which the chemical, as it were, goes before and imperiously de- 
termines what molecules shall be combined or separated; while the 
other, the cohesive, silent and unobstrusive, follows in its train, and 
industriously assorting and arranging its predecessors' labours, here 
perhaps forms a diamond, or there superintends the integrity of the 
atmosphere ! 

Such are molecular forces as they obviously appear to us, and 
such the arguments deducible from them. But when we attempt to 
go further, and inquire into the intimate nature of these forces, we 
not only find much that is unknown to us, but much that apparently 
surpasses our utmost conception ! And what a still more sublime 
idea is this calculated to convey to us of the wisdom and pow r er of 
that Being who contrived and made the whole ! When and where, 
do we naturally exclaim, did this Being exist? whence his wisdom, 
and whence his power? There is, there can be, but one answer to 
these inquiries. The Being who contrived and made all these things 
must have pre-existed from eternity — must have been omniscient — 
must have been omnipotent — must have been God ! 



CHAPTER IV. 

of chemical elementary principles, and of the laws of their 
combination. 

In the preceding chapter we have endeavoured to show that the 
minutest fragment of homogeneous matter cognisable by our senses 
is composed of innumerable molecules, all of which are exactly 
alike in size, in shape, in properties, in short, of every kind ; and w r e 
argued that these facts incontestably prove that these molecules 
could not always have existed in their present form, nor have been 
formed by chance, but that they must have had a beginning, and 



56 CHEMISTRY. 

have been the work of a Creator. Now when we consider the 
prodigious quantity of matter composing our globe (to go no fur- 
ther) or even composing a portion of it, as for example, the mass of 
water existing in the ocean, and reflect that every individual mole- 
cule of this water possesses properties exactly like those of the drop 
we formerly contemplated, our argument, already sufficiently con- 
vincing, actually overwhelms us w ith its force. Still however it ad- 
mits of further corroboration ; and we proceed now to show that 
all this vast, assemblage of molecules, so numerous, so diversified, so 
extraordinary as they are, may be reduced to a very few elemen- 
tary groups, upon the endless combinations and separations of which 
all the phenomena of chemistry depend. 

Section. I. 

Of Chemical Elementary Principles. 

The substances at present considered as elementary amount to 
about fifty-four. Of these several possess certain properties in com- 
mon, though they all differ from one another in subordinate par- 
ticulars, or in other words, are specifically different. Of the whole 
number not above two or three exist in any great quantity in an un- 
combined state, at least in those parts of our globe to which we have 
access, but the whole are wrapped up as it were and have their 
properties concealed in compounds. Under ordinary circumstances 
most elementary principles exist as solids, but some of the more im- 
portant occur in a gaseous form, and one or two as fluids. A few 
of them are apparently of so little consequence in the world, that if 
they were annihilated they would scarcely be missed ; while others 
of them, on the other hand, are so obviously necessary to the 
existence of the present order of things, that the least derangement 
or alteration in their proportion or quantity would be fatal to the 
whole. Some of these elementary substances exist in such enor- 
mous quantities as to constitute a large proportion of the whole 
visible bulk of our globe, while others again, occur in such minute 
proportion, at least within our reach, as to be obtained with difficulty 
and not without elaborate research. With respect to the facility 
with which they enter into combination, and the obstinacy with 
which they unite, they difler also very remarkably; a few of thorn 
combining readily in a variety of proportions with almost all the 
rest, while some of the others can be scarcely made to combine un- 
der any circumstances. Lastly, with respect to the influences 
which different elementary substances are capable o\' exerting upon 
organic life, those are equally striking. A large majority iA them 
indeed may, in their simple state, be considered of a deleterious na- 
ture; while three or four of them, on the other hand, make or- 



ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES. 



57 



ganized beings what they are, and are necessary to their very 
existence. 

Such are a few of the leading properties of the elementary prin- 
ciples as we are at present acquainted with them; in the following 
table from Dr. Thomson they are arranged, as far perhaps as is 
practicable, according to their chemical characters. 

TABLE. 



1 Oxygen. 


14 Arsenic. 


27 Calcium. 


41 Zinc. 


2 Chlorine. 


15 Antimony. 


28 Magnesium. 


42 Cadmium. 


3 Bromine. 


16 Tellurium. 


29 Strontium. 


43 Lead. 


4 Iodine. 


17 Chromium. 


30 Baryum. 


44 Tin. 


5 Fluorine. 


18 Uranium. 


31 Aluminum. 


45 Bismuth. 




19 Vanadium. 

20 Molybdenum. 


32 Clucinum. 

33 Yttrium. 


46 Copper. 

47 Mercury. 


6 Hydrogen. 


7 Carbon. 


21 Tungsten. 


34 Zirconium. 


48 Silver. 


8 Azote. 


22 Titanium. 


35 Thorinum. 


49 Gold. 


9 Boron. 


23 Columbium. 


36 Iron. 


x 50 Platinum. 


10 Silicon. 




37 Manganese. 


51 Palladium 




1 Phosphorus. 


24 Potassium. 


38 Nickel. 


52 Rhodium. 


L2 Sulphur. 


25 Sodium. 


39 Cobalt. 


53 Iridium. 


13 Selenium. 


26 Lithium. 


40 Cerium. 


54 Osmium. 



It is foreign to the object of this work to enter into a minute de- 
scription of these bodies ; we shall therefore content ourselves with 
such a view of them as may enable the general reader to form some 
idea of their properties, and to follow us without much difficulty in 
our subsequent remarks. 

The five first bodies, Oxygen, Chlorine, Bromine, Iodine, and 
Fluorine, are usually termed supporters of combustion. They have 
some properties in common, though in other respects, and particu- 
larly in their apparent relative importance in the economy of nature 
they differ exceedingly. They are remarkable for the tendency 
they have, not only to combine with one another, but with almost 
all the bodies below them in the table ; and their union, particularly 
that of oxygen, is usually accompanied with the extrication of 
more or less of heat and light, and constitutes the well-known phe- 
nomena termed combustion. 

(1) Oxygen is one of the very few elementary substances that 
occur naturally in the gaseous form, in which form it constitutes 



1. Oxygen, from c£us, acid, and yivvaa, to generate ; from its property of form- 
ing acids. 2. Chlorine, from ^xo^oc, green; so called from its colour. 3. Bro- 
mine, from 0^Z/uoc, fetid; so called from its strong odour. 4. Iodine, from 'log/JY,? 
violet ; from the colour it assumes in the gaseous state. 6. Hydrogen, from CJa>£, 
water, and yivvaa, to generate. 8 Azote, from a privative and £&>», life; from its 
being incapable of supporting life. 13. Selenium, from 2sx»'v», the moon. 
17. Chromium, from x^i"* co ' our ; so called from the beautiful colours of some of 
its salts. 18. Uranium, from oipetvos, the heavens. 19. Vanadium, from vanadis, a 
Scandinavian deity. 20. Molybdenum, from Ms^60icuvA 9 lend. 22. Titanium, 
from Titclvoc, calx. 23. Columbium, from Columbia, in America, where it was 



58 CHEMISTRY. 

about one fifth part of common air. As the world at present exists, 
oxygen, perhaps, may be fairly considered as one of the most im- 
portant, if not the most important substance in it. From its prone- 
ness to enter into composition it is constantly operating upon, and 
modifying everything. By far the greater proportion of mineral 
bodies forming the crust of the earth, contain more or less of it ; 
and in all plants and animals it actually exists as a constituent 
elementary principle. In short, the properties of oxygen stamp it as 
an element and subordinate agent of the most important kind; while 
the numberless contrivances which are observable in nature, to 
secure, or evade, or modify its operations, are most extraordinarv, 
and exhibit some of the most marked and unequivocal evidences of 
design on the part of their great Contriver, that we meet with 
among is works. Several of the most important of these con- 
trivances we shall have occasion to allude to hereafter ; but there is 
one of so curious and interesting a character that it may be men- 
tioned here as an illustration of the above remarks. The nature 
and mechanism of the function of respiration will be explained else- 
where, and it is sufficient for our present purpose to state that, by 
means of a complicated apparatus, the blood is made to circulate 
through the lungs, in order that it may be there exposed to the 
oxygen of the atmosphere. For purposes beyond our comprehen- 
sion, but probably in part at least with a view to the future creation 
of organized beings, the great Architect of the universe had willed 
that this principle should exist upon the surface of our globe in a 
gaseous state ; when he created animals he chose also 1 to render 
them dependent upon oxygen for their existence ; and he effects 
his object, not by bending this principle to his purpose, by altering 
its physical or other properties ; not by obtaining it from water, or 
any of the innumerable compounds into which it enters, which ac- 
cording to our imperfect notions he might have more easily done ; but, 
as if on purpose to display his power and design, he rigidly adheres 
to the properties, both mechanical and chemical, imparted to oxygen, 
and to these properties accommodates his future labours ! The 
whole therefore of the complicated and beautiful apparatus, con- 
nected with the respiration of animals, is most obviously designed 
and constructed with reference to the properties of the oxygen ol 
the atmosphere, and altogether they afford one of the most striking 
evidences of adaptation and design presented to us in nature. 

(2) Chlorine in its elementary state is a gas. having all the 
mechanical properties of common air, but in this form it never 

first found. 26. Lithium, from A/flec, :i stone. 29. Strontium, from Strontian, the 
name of a place in Scotland, where firsl found. SO. Baryum, from B«gvr, heavy. 
Aluminum, from Alumen, alum. 32. Glucinum, from r\u*i>c, sweet •. From the 

taste of some of its salts. 52. Rhodium, from V J t , a rose j from the Colour of 

gome of its compounds. Iridium, from l^ic the rainbow i from the varietj of co- 
lours assumed by some of its salts. 54. Osmium, from 'osy>, odour; from the 
strong smell emitted by some of its compounds. 



CHLORINE. BROMINE. IODINE. FLUORINE. 59 

occurs naturally. It exists however in great abundance in a state 
of combination, from which it may be readily obtained by easy 
chemical processes. One of the most abundant sources of chlorine 
is common salt, into which it enters in the proportion of about 60 per 
cent. As compared with oxygen chlorine is much less abundant 
and perhaps important ; yet it is doubtful if without chlorine the 
present order of things could proceed. Take for example the fami- 
liar instance of common salt above referred to. Let us consider 
the universal diffusion of this substance throughout nature — what 
the sea would be, or how animals could exist, without it — let us 
consider these and the numberless other operations which this 
valuable compound more or less enters into, or influences, and we 
shall be able to form some notion of the part chlorine bears in the 
economy of nature. On the other hand, when we reflect that were 
chlorine to be extricated from its state of combination, and made to 
exist, like oxygen, in a gaseous form, that it would instantly prove 
fatal to organized beings ; can we fail to be struck with the very 
obvious design thus displayed in rendering its quantity and com- 
bining powers such as to keep it in a state of union, and by these 
means to secure all its useful without its deleterious properties? 

(3) (4) Bromine and Iodine, the next two substances, are found 
principally in sea- water and in marine productions. They appear 
to exist in very minute proportion, and always in a state of combi- 
nation. Bromine exists under ordinary circumstances as a deep- 
coloured red fluid, having a very strong and offensive odour; Iodine 
is a crystallized solid, volatile by a slight increase of temperature, 
and forming a beautiful violet vapour. Bromine and Iodine more 
nearly resemble chlorine than oxygen in their properties, though 
they differ materially from both, and their use in the economy of 
nature is absolutely unknown. It may however be observed that 
Iodine has lately been much celebrated for its medicinal properties.* 

(5) Fluorine has been rather inferred than demonstrated to exist. 
It occurs principally in the mineral called Fluor Spar, in a state of 
combination with lime, and in this state it would seem to be harm- 
less; but in a state of purity it is exceedingly deleterious. One of 
its most remarkable properties is that of corroding glass. 

* It may not be amiss to observe here that the author of the present volume first 
employed the hydriodate of potash, as a remedy for goitre, in the year 1816, after 
having- previously ascertained, by experiments upon himself, that it was not poison- 
ous in small doses as had been represented. Some time before the period stated, 
this substance had been found in certain marine productions ; and it struck the au- 
thor that burnt sponge (a well known remedy for goitre) might owe its properties 
to the presence of Iodine, and this was his motive for making the trial. He lost 
sight of the case in which the remedy was employed, before any visible alteration 
was made in the state of the disease; but not before some of the most striking ef- 
fects of the remedy were observed. The above employment of the compounds of 
Iodine in medicine was at the time made no secret; and so early as 1819, the 
remedy was adopted in St. Thomas' Hospital, by Dr. Elliotson, at the author's 
suggestion. 



60 CHEMISTRY. 

We pass on now to a very different class of substances, and which 
instead of having the power of supporting combustion in other sub- 
stances, are for the most part themselves combustible. Of these, the 
first and perhaps the most important we have to notice is 

(6) Hydrogen. This principle in its elementary state exists as a 
gas, having all the mechanical properties of common air. In this 
state it is exceedingly inflammable; and if mixed with oxygen, and 
if the mixture be exposed to heat, the two gases unite suddenly and 
violently with a loud explosion ; while the result of the combustion 
is water. Hydrogen is the lightest body known, and under the same 
bulk therefore contains less matter than any other body. It does not 
exist naturally in a separate state, but always in combination ; and 
by far most generally and abundantly in combination with oxygen 
in the form of water. Hydrogen ranks perhaps next to oxygen in 
importance ; at least as far as organized beings are concerned ; since 
like oxygen it constitutes one of the elementary principles of which 
they are formed. It differs however remarkably from oxygen, in 
not being in its elementary state necessary to the existence of or- 
ganized beings; indeed hydrogen is actually incompatible with the 
existence of animals, if not of vegetables ; and its properties as an 
element have evidently been sacrificed to its properties as a com- 
pound, that is to say, to its properties as water. Hence we have to 
admire the happy adjustment of the quantities of the two elements to 
each other, so that the oxygen shall predominate ; an adjustment 
that can scarcely be explained upon any other supposition than that 
of design; for any other cause, or chance, would have been quite 
as likely to have 'produced an excess of hydrogen as of oxygen, or 
at least anything but the exact proportions required. Lastly, it may 
be remarked, that to the relative proportions of oxygen and hydro- 
gen existing on our globe, more than perhaps to any other subordi- 
nate cause, the present order of things owes its stability. For the 
proportions of these principles are so happily adjusted and balanced, 
and all the numerous operations dependent upon them are, in conse- 
quence, so firmly established, that no material change can possibly 
happen to any part from an internal cause, but if changed at all, the 
whole must be changed from without. 

(7) Carbon, or charcoal, is a substance too well known in its or- 
dinary state to require description ; in its crystallized and pure state 
it is found to constitute the diamond, the hardest and most brilliant 
body in nature; a circumstance that certainly could not have been 
anticipated, but which affords a most striking instance of the effects 
produced by the different modes in which molecules of the same 
matter may be aggregated. Carbon perhaps more than any other 
principle may be considered as constituting the stamina] or funda- 
mental element entering into the composition of organized beings. 
Tiiis is particularly the ease iii principles from the vegetable king* 
dom, which owe their peculiar character essentially to carbon, and 



AZOTE. 01 

their endless varieties to differences in its quantity, and to the modi- 
fying influence of the hydrogen and oxygen with which it is associ- 
ated. In animal substances, carbon exerts a similar influence, but 
its effects are materially modified by the presence of another sta- 
minal principle to be presently considered. Carbon, in some state 
or other, exists in considerable quantities upon the surface of our 
globe, but apparently by no means in so large a proportion as oxy- 
gen and hydrogen. Exclusively of that actually involved in the 
composition of organized beings, carbon is met with nearly pure in 
large quantities in particular districts in the well-known form of 
fossil coals ; but it occurs in far greater proportion, in combination 
with oxygen in the form of carbonic acid; which carbonic acid in 
union with lime, constitutes common chalk and limestone, two of the 
most abundant minerals in nature.* Carbon in its elementary state, 
is a very inert substance, and is scarcely liable to be affected by, or 
to affect organized beings ; but with hydrogen and oxygen it forms 
gaseous compounds of great activity, and capable ©f proving 
instantly fatal to animals respiring them. Such effects, however, 
appear to be obviated by a beautiful expedient which we shall have 
occasion more particularly to notice hereafter. In the mean time it 
may be observed, that though the compound of carbon and oxygen 
{carbonic acid) is by innumerable processes constantly forming around 
us in enormous quantities ; by some compensating means it disappears 
as fast as it is formed ; so that the atmosphere, which without this 
provision would probably before now have become contaminated by 
carbonic acid to an extent fatal to animal life, barely contains 
traces of it. 

(8) Azote or nitrogen is one of the very few elementary principles 
which exist naturally in an uncombined state. It constitutes about 
4-5ths or 80 per cent, of common air, the rest being principally oxy- 
gen. The great bulk of this principle in existence is confined to the 
atmosphere, and to animal substances, of which it forms a consti- 
tuent element ; and it enters very little into natural mineral produc- 
tions. In its pure state, azote is remarkable for its negative proper- 
ties, that is to say, for the difficulty with which it enters into com- 
bination with other matters. Thus it is neither combustible nor a 
supporter of combustion ; is neither acid nor alkaline ; possesses 
neither taste nor smell; nor does it directly combine with any 
other known substance. Yet when made by peculiar management 
to unite with oxygen, hydrogen, or carbon, azote forms some of the 
most energetic compounds we possess : thus, mixed with oxygen it 

*In order to give some idea of the proportion in which carbon exists in different 
common substances, it may be observed that a pound of charcoal is equal to, and 
is contained in rather more than, two pounds of sugar or flour, and eight of pota- 
toes or limestone ; so that a mountain of limestone contains the essential element 
of at least an equal bulk of potatoes, and of a forest that would amply cover many 
such mountains. 

6 



62 CHEMISTRY. 

forms atmospheric air, as before observed ; united with oxygen it 
forms aquafortis, the most corrosive of liquids ; united with hydro- 
gen it forms the volatile alkali or ammonia, likewise an energetic 
compound, but of an opposite nature ; while united with carbon and 
hydrogen, it forms prussic acid, the most virulent poison in existence ! 
Azote may be considered as constituting the characteristic element 
of animal substances, and as imparting to them their peculiar pro- 
perties ; in this point of view therefore it is a principle of very great 
importance. Moreover, the above mentioned negative properties of 
azote are evidently of a primordial kind, and seem to have been 
formed with reference to future creations, which all have been most 
carefully and rigidly adapted to them. Thus had the properties of 
azote not been negative, those of its most important compound, atmo- 
spheric air could not have been negative ; and atmospheric air might 
have been acid or alkaline, or have possessed odour or colour; 
either of which circumstances would have been incompatible with 
the presenforder of things. 

(9) (10) Boron and Silicon. The next two substances obtain 
their names from borax and silex, the natural productions in which 
they exist in a state of combination. Borax is a saline production 
chiefly found in certain lakes in Thibet and China. Boron, the ele- 
mentary substance obtainable from it, is a deep brown powder pos- 
sessing neither taste nor smell, but highly inflammable at a tempera- 
ture below a red heat. Silicon is the elementary basis of silex or 
common flint, one of the most abundant minerals in nature. Silicon 
is a brown powder very similar to boron in appearance, and like it 
inflammable under certain circumstances. These two elementary 
principles do not exist naturally, but have been formed by elaborate 
chemical processes in small quantities only. They seem to be more 
nearly allied to carbon, in their properties, than to any other ele- 
mentary product. Borax exists in very small quantities, and its use 
in the economy of nature is not apparent. Silex on the other hand 
is a most important production, and in its hardness, insolubility, and 
other refractory properties, we recognise a substance admirably 
adapted for the purpose to which it has evidently been designed, viz. 
that of constituting the stamina or ground-work, as it were, of our 
globe, and which could not be withdrawn without subverting the 
whole. Silex is found in small quantities both in plants and in ani- 
mals, but does not, like hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and azote, form 
a constituent element of organized beings. 

(11) Phosphorus, under ordinary circumstances, is a pale amber- 
coloured substance, very like wax in appearance, but so exceedingly 
combustible that it cannot be heated, much loss melted in the open 
air, without immediately taking lire. Under these circumstances, as 
may be supposed, it does not exist naturally, but is obtained by an 
elaborate process from various compounds into which it enters; as 
for example, from bone carl//, or the earthy basis ol the bones ot 



SULPHUR, SELENIUM, ARSENIC. 63 

animals ; and also from certain salts. It exists also in the mine- 
ral kingdom in certain districts in considerable quantities, but upon 
the whole, it is not an abundant principle. Phosphorus affords an- 
other beautiful instance in which the design has been directed to the 
properties of the compound, rather than to the element itself. The 
phosphate of lime or bone earth was apparently the thing wanted to 
constitute the bony skeleton of animals, and accordingly, to this 
compound the properties of the element itself seem to have been 
sacrificed. Neither lime itself in mass, nor any of its mineral com- 
pounds, appear to be adapted for forming a constituent principle of 
a living organized being. It was necessary therefore to have a 
connecting medium, or link, that should unite organization with the 
mineral constituent, and phosphorus admirably accomplishes this 
object. Accordingly, we see that organization goes on in conjunc- 
tion with lime in the bones of animals, through the medium of this 
element, quite as readily as in other parts of their system ; whereas 
when phosphorus is absent, as in shells, and in other deposites of car- 
bonate of lime, the carbonate of lime is extravascular, and seems to 
form no part of the living system. There are also other important 
offices which this principle evidently performs in the animal eco- 
nomy, some of which we shall have occasion to refer to hereafter. 

(12) Sulphur. This well-known substance is one of the very few 
that exist naturally in an elementary state. It is a very abundant 
and probably important principle in the economy of nature, as it not 
only exists in large quantities in the mineral kingdom, but in a great- 
er or less proportion in almost all animal, and in many vegetable 
products. Its uses, however, at present, are very imperfectly un- 
derstood. Sulphur combines with hydrogen, and forms a very de- 
leterious gaseous compound. Its combinations with oxygen are 
generally acid, and very active in their concentrated form, but not 
poisonous. 

(13) Selenium, the next substance, is found in very minute quan- 
tities generally associated with sulphur, which in its properties it 
somewhat resembles ; or rather, perhaps it appears to constitute 
the connecting link between sulphur and the metals. The uses of 
selenium in the economy of nature are unknown ; but we shall 
have occasion hereafter to refer to its compound with hydrogen, 
which is even more deleterious than the compound of sulphur with 
this element. 

(14) Arsenic in its pure state is a metalloid, or imperfectly me- 
tallic substance, having much the appearance of polished steel. 
In the form in which it is popularly known, as white arsenic, it 
is combined with oxygen, and constitutes one of the most virulent 
of poisons. Arsenic exists in certain minerals in considerable 
quantities, and seems in every form, to be incompatible with or- 
ganic life. 



01 CHEMISTRY. 

(15) Antimony is usually found in nature associated with sulphur, 
the compound it forms with which, was for a long time considered 
as the metal itself. In its pure state, antimony has a bluish-gray 
colour, and possesses considerable metallic splendour, but in this 
form it seldom occurs in nature. The compounds of antimony are 
active medicinal agents, and some of them are much employed for 
that purpose. 

(16) (17) (18) (19) (20) (21) (22) (23) Tellurium, Chromium, 
Uranium, Vanadium, Molybdcenum, Tungsten, Titanium, and Co- 
lumbium, the next eight substances, are metals, for the most part 
obtained by elaborate processes from rare mineral productions. 
The most important, as well perhaps as the most abundant of these 
substances, is chromium, the compounds of which, from the splen- 
dour of their colours, have been lately much employed in the arts. 
It may be remarked of all these substances, that at present their use 
in the economy of nature is quite unknown to us. 

(24) (25) Potassium and Sodium are the metallic bases of the two 
well-known alkaline substances, potash and soda, which are com- 
pounds of these metals with oxygen. Such, however, are the pow- 
erful affinities of the metallic bases for oxygen, that they nowhere 
exist naturally upon the surface of our globe. The same may be 
also remarked of potash and soda, the powerful alkaline properties 
of which prevent them from existing separately. In this respect, 
the compounds these metals form with oxygen, present a striking 
contrast with the compounds they form with the analogous principle, 
chlorine; the compounds of potassium and sodium with chlorine 
(the latter of which constitutes common salt,) are remarkable for 
their fixed permanent character, and for the little tendency in 
general which they have, to enter into a further state of combina- 
tion. Besides their remarkable avidity for oxygen, potassium and 
sodium possess some other unusual properties. Potassium, for ex- 
ample, is so light, that were it compatible with water, it would 
swim on the surface of that fluid; a circumstance we can hardly 
imagine to happen with a metal. Potash and soda in all their forms 
are most important principles, and evidently are necessary to the 
existence of the present order of things, both mineral and organized: 
for there are few organized beings that do not contain more or loss 
of them, especially of soda. Potash is found more particularly in 
plants, but exists also in animals; while the universal presence of 
soda in animals, in the form of common salt has been already re- 
ferred to, and is generally known. These alkalies present us with a 
beautiful instance of adaptation, \'or the purposes which they seem 
destined to fulfil in the operations of nature. Had they been solids, 
or had they formed solid compounds, like many of the preceding 
principles, they would have been totally unfitted iov their peculiar 
office, that is to say, for forming a constituent element of the fluids 
of organized beings. 



LITHIUM, CALCIUM, MAGNESIUM. 65 

(26) Lithium is the metallic basis of lithia, a substance recently 
discovered, and intermediate in its properties between the alkalies 
and the earths to be next considered. It has hitherto been met with, 
in some rare minerals, in small quantities only. 

(27) Calcium, the metallic bases of lime, can be obtained only by 
a troublesome and difficult process, and of course does not exist 
naturally. It is a white metal like silver, and by union with oxygen 
is readily convertible into lime. This well-known principle exists in 
the greatest abundance in nature, not as quick-lime, but united with 
carbon and oxygen, in the form of common limestone, marble, &c. 
The great importance of lime in the economy of nature is too ob- 
vious to require notice, and it is only necessary to revert to the fact 
that this earth is one of the very few mineral productions capable 
of forming a part of a living organized being ; at least in any quan- 
tity. This earth, as formerly noticed, constitutes w r ith phosphorus 
and oxygen, the basis of the bones of animals ; and with carbon 
and oxygen, all the endless variety of shells and similar products. 
Thus the properties of lime furnish another striking instance of adap- 
tation to a particular purpose. The compounds of potash and soda 
are all very soluble in water, and hence are chiefly confined to the 

fluids of animals, in which their presence is indispensable. But a 
solid framework or skeleton was necessary to the existence of the 
more perfect animals, and as this could not be formed from the so- 
luble potash or soda, the introduction of another mineral substance 
possessed of the requisite properties was necessary. Now lime, 
some of the compounds of which are solid and some fluid, is admi- 
rably adapted for the purpose ; and lime accordingly has been 
chosen : the lime is carried, in a state of solution, to the spot where 
it is required, and is there converted into a solid; while by the 
same agency, when necessary, this solid is again converted into a 
fluid and removed! It seems impossible to conceive arrangements 
to present more striking evidences of adaptation than these ; and the 
more we consider the subject in all its bearings, the more wonder- 
ful does it appear. 

(28) Magnesium is the metallic basis of the well-known earth 
called magnesia. It is said to resemble calcium in its properties, 
and like that principle does not exist naturally, at least upon the 
surface of our globe. Magnesia, though occurring most abundantly 
in nature, and entering very largely into the composition of rocks, 
does not, like lime, constitute masses of great extent in the same 
simple state of combination ; that is to say, there are no mountains 
of magnesia, as there are of chalk and of limestone. Magnesia, even 
more decidedly than the three preceding mineral substances, seems 
to be necessary to the existence of organized beings ; as there does 
not appear to be one, in which traces of this earth are not met with, 
generally associated with phosphorus. Its uses, however, are less 
obvious than those of the three other substances, and indeed may be 

6* 



6G CHEMISTRY. 

said to be unknown; though there is reason to believe that it is 
most intimately connected with the vital operations of organized 
beings. 

(29) (30) Strontium, and Baryum, the metallic bases of the two 
earthy bodies strontia and baryta, are allied to calcium and magne- 
sium in some of their properties, but differ exceedingly from them 
in others. Their combination with oxygen exhibit still more de- 
cidedly alkaline powers than those of either calcium or magnesium, 
and in consequence, like them, they only exist in various states of 
combination ; and most usually with carbon and oxygen, or with 
sulphur and oxygen. Compared with lime and magnesia, strontia 
and baryta exist but sparingly, and neither of them has anything to 
do with organization ; indeed many of the combinations of baryum 
are virulent poisons. 

(31) Aluminum is the metallic basis of the earth alumina, the 
characteristic ingredient of the well-known salt called alum. The 
metallic basis, like the preceding, nowhere exists ; but alumina, the 
compound of aluminum and oxygen, is one of the most abundant 
productions of nature, and constitutes an ingredient in by far the 
greater number of rocks and soils upon the surface of the globe. 
The different kinds of clay, also, of which bricks, earthenware, &c, 
are formed, consist chiefly of this earth in different states of purity : 
so that it is a substance of great utility and importance. Alumina 
appears to have nothing to do with organization; at least it is not 
known to form a necessary constituent of any organized being, either 
vegetable or animal; though it is in constant communication with or- 
ganized beings, and appears to be almost necessary, in some indirect 
way, to their existence. This fact is very remarkable ; for as the 
earth does not appear to be poisonous, it could scarcely have been 
so completely excluded from living bodies, except by some design 
beyond our comprehension. 

(32) (33) (34) (35) Glucinum, Yttrium, Zirconium, and Thorhium. 
the four next elementary principles are the metallic bases of sub- 
stances, usually considered as possessing the characters of earthy 
bodies, and denominated Glucina, Yttria, Zirconia, and Thorhia. 
They all appear to exist very sparingly in nature, and are only met 
with in some rare minerals. Glucina has been hitherto met with 
only in precious stones denominated the emerald, the beryl, and the 
euclase ; yttria and thorina in some rare Swedish and Norwegian 
minerals; and zirconia in the jargon or zircon from Ceylon, and in 
the hyacinth. These earths more nearly resemble alumina than 
any other substance. 

(36) Iron, one of the most important, is also one o{ the most 
abundant principles in nature. It is met with occasionally in the 
metallic state, hut. most generally it is found mineralised in various 
ways, and can only ho obtained pure by an elaborate process. Iron 
exists in minute quantities in almost all vegetable ami animal pro- 



MANGANESE, NICKEL, COBALT, ETC. 67 

ducts, particularly in the blood ; though its mode of combination, as 
well as its precise use, are quite unknown. Iron may justly be 
considered as the most useful of all the metals, and the one that has 
perhaps contributed more towards the civilization of mankind than 
any other. To form some idea of its use, we have only to reflect 
what would happen if it were annihilated. What substitute could 
be found for it in all the numerous instances in which it contributes 
to the wants or to the comforts of mankind; particularly through 
the medium of tools, of almost every one of which it constitutes 
the essential material. In short, when w 7 e contemplate all the cir- 
cumstances connected with this metal, its abundance, the manner in 
which it is mineralized, and the occasion which it thus gives to hu- 
man ingenuity to extract it from its ores ; its wholesomeness (for 
many of the metals are poisonous) ; its properties, particularly its 
extraordinary tenacity ; its strength, its property of welding, of 
being converted into steel, and in this form of being tempered to 
any degree of hardness we choose ; its magnetic properties, &c, — 
when we contemplate all these circumstances, it is impossible not to 
be struck with such varied usefulness, and to consider iron, not only 
as an article evidently designed for the benefit of man, but as the 
instrument by which he should conquer and govern the world; and 
thus be enabled to place himself, where it was evidently intended he 
should be, at the head of the creation. 

(37) Manganese somewhat resembles iron in a few of its proper- 
ties. It may be obtained from its ores by an elaborate process, but 
in this form it is little known or used. Manganese exists in minute 
quantities in certain mineral waters, and in a few T animal products ; 
and its combinations with oxygen, are not only employed in the arts, 
but by the chemist, who frequently procures oxygen for his experi- 
ments from the ores of manganese. Though much diffused, man- 
ganese is not a very abundant metal, at least compared with iron, 
and its uses in the economy of nature are apparently much less im- 
portant. 

(38) (39) Nickel and Cobalt, are two metals somewhat resem- 
bling each other in a few of their properties, and their ores are 
often associated in nature. It is remarkable also that they are both 
generally found combined with iron in those bodies, which occa- 
sionally fall from the atmosphere, and which are considered as of 
meteoric origin. Like iron also both these metals are capable of be- 
coming magnetic. Cobalt is used in the arts, and is the basis of the 
blue colour upon our earthenware ; but neither this metal nor nickel 
are to be compared with iron in point of utility, nor are they very 
abundant productions. 

(40) Cerium is a metal very little known, and has hitherto been 
obtained, in minute quantities only, from some rare minerals occur- 
ring in Sweden and in Greenland. 

(41) (42) Zinc, Cadmium. These two metals are generally 



68 CHEMISTRY. 

associated in nature, and somewhat resemble each other in their 
properties; but the last is comparatively much less abundant, and 
has been only recently discovered. Zinc is a metal easily fusible, 
of a bluish white colour, and of a lamellated brittle texture ; though 
by peculiar management it may be rendered malleable. It is an 
ingredient in the well-known compound metal, brass, and in this 
form is much used and is of considerable importance. 

(43) Lead. This well-known metal is not found in its metallic 
state, but its ores are very abundant, and most of the lead of com- 
merce is extracted from the mineral called galena, which is a com- 
pound of lead and sulphur. The general properties of lead and of 
its compounds render it of considerable importance ; but its poison- 
ous properties are a considerable drawback to its usefulness. Why 
lead, and other mineral matters, should have been constituted 
poisonous is a question beyond our reach ; and all we can at pre- 
sent venture to state on this and on similar points is, that it is not 
actually necessary that man should employ lead or other poisons, 
and that he may, if he chooses, avoid their deleterious properties. 

(44) Tin. This useful metal has been employed by man from the 
most remote antiquity, though it nowhere exists naturally in its me- 
tallic state, but usually in conjunction with oxygen. Tin is not a very 
abundant metal, being apparently confined to a few localities only, 
one of the most noted of which is Cornwall. It is much used in the 
arts, and hence is of considerable importance. 

(45) Bismuth occurs in nature both in the metallic state and in 
various states of combination. It has a reddish-white colour and a 
lamellated brittle texture, and is easily fusible. Bismuth is not a 
very abundant metal, and is not much employed. 

(46) Copper occurs in nature in the metallic state, but much more 
frequently mineralized, especially with sulphur. The valuable pro- 
perties of copper, both in its pure and mixed state, render it of conside- 
rable importance ; and it is in consequence much employed in the arts. 
With zinc it constitutes brass; with tin bell-metal; both well-known 
compounds. Copper has been lately said to exist in very minute 
quantities in organic nature, but whether as an accidental, or as an 
essential ingredient is not known. The compounds of copper are 
poisonous, but these poisonous properties, like those of lead, can be 
easily obviated and guarded against. 

(47) Mercury. This well-known fluid metal occurs in the metal- 
lic state, but more frequently mineralized, especially with sulphur. 
Its importance in the arts, and as a medicinal agent, are too well 
known to require mention here. The fluidity of mercury presents 
a beautiful instance of the endless diversity of nature, and adds 
much to its importance and usefulness. Mercury exists in con- 
siderable abundance, though much less so than many of the pre- 
ceding elementary principles. 

(48) (41)) Silver and Gold) and their uses, are too familiar to re- 



LAWS OF CHEMICAL COMBINATION. 69 

quire enumeration. They are both met with in the metallic state, 
but silver also occurs mineralized. So unimportant a part do they 
seem to perform in the economy of nature, that if they were an- 
nihilated, it is probable that the world would go on just as well 
without them. How different in these respects from iron, and how 
much less therefore intrinsically valuable ! Independently of their 
beauty, the only really valuable properties of silver and gold are the 
difficulty with which they are acted on by heat and other extrane- 
ous agents, properties, which if they were more abundant, would 
render them well adapted for a great many useful purposes. 

(50) (51) (52) (53) (54) Platinum, Palladium, Rhodium, Iridium, 
and Osmium, are metallic substances usually found associated in 
small quantities, chiefly in certain districts of South America, but 
recently also in the old world. Platinum, the most abundant and 
important of them, is the heaviest body in nature. It is scarcely 
acted on by any ordinary agents, but it may be welded by heat; 
properties which render it exceedingly valuable f r many purposes, 
and make us regret that it is not more abundant. Palladium some- 
what resembles platinum in its properties, but occurs in less quantity. 
The other three metals exist in very minute quantities, and their pro- 
perties are very little known. 

We have thus taken a summary view of the different elementary 
principles met with upon the surface of our globe, and of their lead- 
ing compounds ; and we are now to consider the laws which regu- 
late the union of these principles with one another. 

Section II. 
Of the Laws of Chemical Combination. 

As the following remarks upon the laws of chemical combination 
can scarcely be so given as to prove a source of interest to the 
general reader, he is desired to pass them over and to turn to the 
last section of the present chapter, where he will find a brief re- 
capitulation of the leading facts, and of the arguments which they 
furnish in favour of design, and of the wisdom and power of the 
Creator. 

In the preceding chapter we advanced a few of the leading ar- 
guments which induce us to adopt the hypothesis that all gaseous 
bodies under the same pressure and temperature, contain an equal 
number of self-repulsive molecules ; and we have now to consider, 
very briefly, some of the important consequences to which this 
hypothesis naturally leads. 

It seems to be satisfactorily established that bodies, in their gase- 
ous state, combine both chemically and cohesively with reference to 
their volumes ; that is to say, that the same volume of a gas always 



70 CHEMISTRY. 

combines with either precisely a similar volume of the same or of 
another gas, or with some multiple or submultiple of that gas (in other 
words with twice, or thrice, or half, or a quarter as much, &c.) but 
not with any intermediate proportion ; and further, that the resulting 
compound always has reference by volume to the original volumes 
of its constitutent elements. Let us take water for example. Wa- 
ter has been shown to consist of one volume of oxygen gas, and 
two volumes of hydrogen gas ; and so invariably, that we cannot 
suppose water to be formed of any other proportions of these ele- 
ments. It has been also shown that the resulting water, if in the 
state of steam, occupies exactly the space of two volumes, so that 
one volume has disappeared. Now let us consider attentively w 7 hat 
must have happened during these changes. One volume of oxygen 
gas has contributed to form two volumes of water, which two 
volumes of water, according to our hypothesis, must consist of twice 
the number of self-repulsive molecules contained in the one volume 
of oxygen; yet every one of these molecules must contain oxygen, 
because oxygen is an essential element of water : it follows, there- 
fore, irresistibly, that every self-repulsive molecule of oxygen has 
been divided into two, and consequently must have originally con- 
sisted of at least two elementary molecules, somehow or other 
associated, so as to have formed only one self-repulsive molecule. 
This conclusion, which seems to flow naturally from our premises, 
is most important, as we shall see immediately, and enables us to 
throw no small light upon many points deemed obscure. In the 
mean time let us consider briefly the nature of the compound self- 
repulsive molecule of oxygen. 

We endeavoured to show in the previous chapter, that every ul- 
timate molecule of matter must possess two kinds of polarity, which, 
for want of better terms, we denominated the chemical and the cohe- 
sive ; and that these polarities bear the same relations to each other 
as electricity and magnetism ; in other words that, like these forces, 
the polarities exist at right angles to each other. Hence if a and b 
be supposed to be two molecules of oxygen, of which ve Ee represent 
the chemical poles and axis, and mm, mm the cohesive, it is evident 
that these two molecules may be supposed to combine in two ways, 
either e to e chemically, or m to m cohesively ; but the latter form of 
course is most probable from the similar nature of the molecules.* 

9 The general and strong analogy, if not identity, in all respects except directum 
between the axial and equatorial forces, lias been already alluded to, and is exem- 
plified by the striking resemblance between electricity and magnetism. We have 
seen also that in the crystallized state, similar molecules probably combine chemi- 
cally. Hence, although the rule stated in the text be true, that similar molecules only 
combine cohesively; yet there may be, and probably are, instances in which they 
combine chemically. For the same reasons, dissimilar molecules may also occasionally 
combine cohesively, it is probable thai such states of combination might be readily 
detected by the optical properties, <>r by seme other peculiarity in the physical pro- 
perties of bodies, if in a crystalline form; but by no other known means. Do not 



LAWS OF CHEMICAL COMBINATION. 71 

Every self-repulsive molecule of oxygen, therefore, as it exists in a 
state of gas, must consist of at least two molecules, united to each 
other cohesively, and acting as a single one ; and the same may be 
shown with respect to other gaseous bodies, as, for instance, hydro- 
gen. It cannot, indeed, be inferred from the composition of water, 
as above stated, whether the self-repulsive molecule of hydrogen be 
double or not ; but this may be demonstrated from other compounds 
into which hydrogen enters. Thus muriatic acid gas is composed 
of one volume of chlorine and one volume of hydrogen, which unite 
without any condensation, and form two volumes of muriatic acid 
gas ; now in this case, it is evident that not only the self-repulsive 
molecule of hydrogen, but also that of the chlorine, must be double 
at least, like the molecule of oxygen above mentioned ; and the same 
might be shown with respect to the other gaseous bodies. 

We have said above that the self-repulsive molecules of oxygen 
and of hydrogen are at least double ; but the probability is that they 
are in reality much more compounded, as the following observations 
will show. The self-repulsive molecule of water, on entering into 
combination, is often found to be divided into two or three (perhaps 
more) parts. Now as we cannot admit the division of an ultimate 
molecule or atom, we must of course conclude that the molecules of 
oxygen and of hydrogen are much more compounded than as above 
represented, and must each of them contain at least three compo- 
nent or sub-molecules. Hence the self-repulsive molecules of water 
will consist of at least nine component sub-molecules (viz. three of 
oxygen and six of hydrogen) which we may suppose to be associ- 
ated, — in the first place the hydrogen with the oxygen, chemically ; 
and afterwards the three sub-molecules of water with one another 
cohesively, so as to constitute one spheroidal molecule ; in a manner 
that with a little ingenuity it would, perhaps, not be difficult to re- 
present mechanically.* 

Precisely the same laws of union may be supposed to prevail 
among the molecules of bodies themselves, as they actually exist 
around us. Thus let us take the crystal of oxalic acid as an in- 
stance for illustration. The acid is composed, according to the 
present language of chemists, of two molecules of carbon, and 
three of oxygen, which by combining, form the acid ; while, to 
complete the compound molecule, and to adapt it for crystallization, 
three molecules of water are required to be somehow associated 
with each of the molecules of the acid. Now in this case, we sup- 
some of the phenomena of Isomerism, that is to say, the property which the same 
body occasionally possesses of assuming different forms, depend upon these 
changes ? 

* When bodies, as, for example, water, are subjected to intense degrees of heat, 
it is not improbable that in many instances the self-repulsive molecules are more or 
less separated into their constituent sub-molecules; in which case of course the bo- 
dies may be supposed to exhibit altogether different elastic powers and laws of ex- 
pansion. 



72 CHEMISTRY. 

pose, that the two molecules of carbon (each of which is perhaps al- 
ready made up of several sub-molecules) are associated together 
into one symmetrical super-molecule ; that the three molecules of 
oxygen are arranged in a similar manner, and then associated che- 
mically with the super-molecule of carbon, and thus form by their 
union a molecule of oxalic acid ; finally, that the three molecules of 
water are united in one super-molecule, which combines chemically 
with the molecule of oxalic acid, and thus completes the molecule 
of the acid as it actually exists in the crystalline form. 

Such are the views we have been induced to take of the nature 
of chemical combination, and whether right or wrong, they have 
the merit of being exceedingly simple and consistent with them- 
selves throughout, which can hardly be said of any others with 
which we are acquainted. Indeed much reflection upon the sub- 
ject, for many years past, has satisfied us that chemical combina- 
tions can be rationally explained only in some such manner as we 
have supposed. Any lengthened argument, however, upon the laws 
of chemical combination here, would be quite out of place ; we shall 
therefore confine ourselves to the following observations. 

1. The above view of the molecular constitution of bodies na- 
turally suggests the important question : do the sub-molecules, which 
we suppose to unite together cohesively and form the self-repulsive 
molecule, of oxygen and hydrogen for instance, possess the same 
properties as those of oxygen and hydrogen, or do they pos- 
sess different properties 1 This questien, in most instances, cannot, in 
the present state of our knowledge, be satisfactorily answered ; 
though there is every reason to believe that the properties both of 
the sub-molecule and of the super-molecule generally differ from 
those of the molecule itself, but that the differences are rather of a 
specific than of a generic character.* Thus chemists have shown 
that different volumes of the same gaseous body, termed carburetted 
hydrogen, combine together and form various compounds : we 
have, for example, a gas, one volume of which contains two volumes 
of carburetted hydrogen; another, one volume of which contains 
three, and another four, of the same gaseous body. Now the sensi- 
ble properties of all these compounds, though resembling each other 
in some respects, are yet specifically different; and as they are all 
composed of the same gaseous body in different proportions, these 
differences must be considered rather the result of cohesive than of 
chemical union. Thus the supposition, that both the sub-moledules 

and the super-molecules of bodies may possess properties different 

ii 

• What we term the sensible properties of bodies arc, of course, in all instances, 
the result of a great number of molecules acting together at the same time; hence 

below :i certain point, mere difference of numbers may be supposed to produce ■ 

Change in sensible properties, not only in degree, but In kind: of the sensible pro- 
perties of a single molecule we can form no conception. 



LAWS OF CHEMTCAL COMBINATION. 73 

from one another and from the standard molecule, is rendered ex- 
ceedingly probable by the above facts; and if our space admitted, it 
would not perhaps be difficult to bring forward other facts of the 
same kind. This however, would be foreign to our purpose; and 
we shall only remark, that a great many curious circumstances, at 
present but very imperfectly understood, evidently appear to be re- 
ferable to a similar principle. 

2. Although we have thus rendered it exceedingly probable that 
the molecules of bodies considered at present as elementary, are im- 
mediately compounded of many others more or less resembling 
them; yet it is obvious that there must be a point at which these and 
other elements exist in a primary or ultimate form, and beyond 
which, if they can be supposed to be subdivided, they must become 
something altogether different. In this respect, therefore, the views 
we have advanced accord generally with those at present entertain- 
ed ; and the only point in which they differ, is in supposing that the 
self-repulsive molecule, as it exists in the gaseous form, does not re- 
present the ultimate molecule, but is composed of many of them. 
With respect to the nature of the ultimate sub-molecules of those 
bodies which we consider at present as elements, as, for instance, of 
oxygen, they may naturally be supposed to possess the most intense 
properties or polarities. Indeed such sub-molecules may be ima- 
gined to resemble in some degree the imponderable matters, heat, 
&c, not only by their extreme tenuity, but in other characters also ; 
and this very intensity of property and character may be reasonably 
considered as one, if not the principal reason, why they are incapa- 
ble of existing in a detached form. Lastly, are not these ultimate 
and refined forms of matter extensively employed in many of the 
operations of nature, and particularly in many of the processes of 
organization ? 

3. By supposing that these laws of combination are not confined 
to elementary bodies, but extend to all others throughout nature ; 
and that bodies, however complicated they may be, always combine 
with reference to their volume in the gaseous state, and always act 
as simple molecules; we are enabled in some degree to explain that 
endless variety of property and condition which we see around us. 
For no sooner is a new compound molecule formed by an assem- 
blage of similar molecules, than it may be supposed to be capable of 
combining with other molecules chemically, and of thus entering into 
a long and novel series of combinations ; while these combinations 
again in their turn may be imagined to lead to others, and so on, till 
the variety becomes extreme. Indeed were not such combinations 
limited by the very nature of the things themselves, no two sub- 
stances would probably possess the same properties. As it is, most 
of these compounds are incapable of separate existence; thus the 
compound super-molecules of water in the crystal of oxalic acid be- 

7 



74 CHEMISTRY. 

fore referred to, are incapable of separate existence : if they could 
exist separately, would they assume the form of water 1 

4. It would not be difficult, though perhaps not very safe or pru- 
dent in the present state of our knowledge, to speculate on the crys- 
talline forms assumed by different bodies, with reference to the 
principles we have advanced. We shall therefore not touch upon 
this part of the subject, further than by observing that the cohesive 
force, though supposed to possess some peculiarity as existing among 
the molecules of different bodies, is nevertheless essentially but of one 
kind. When therefore the molecules of different bodies are of the 
same size (or rather of the same weight,) they may be naturally 
supposed capable of associating themselves into the same form; and 
if they happen to be mixed together, they may even enter indis- 
criminately into the same crystal. Hence arises what has been 
termed isomorphism of bodies ; while if there be a near approxima- 
tion, but not an exact coincidence in the above relations, they may 
upon the same principles be supposed to give origin to plesiomorphism, 
that is to say, to a near approach to a similarity of form. 

5. With respect to the nature of the circumstances which deter- 
mine the peculiar characters and modes of existence of bodies we 
know very little. We are almost equally ignorant also of the na- 
ture of the causes which determine the cohesion of the molecules 
of bodies into the crystalline form. A variety of arguments might, 
however, be brought forward which appear to show that the size 
and shape of the molecules have a great deal to do with crystalli- 
zation; certainly, at least, the molecules must be supposed to have 
a size and shape somehow or other adapted for the modes in which 
they are arranged, otherwise they could not be capable of such an 
arrangement. The cause of this similarity of size and shape is un- 
known, but it most probably depends upon the similarity of weight 
(Isobarism) of the molecule; that is to say, upon the relation or 
identity of the absolute quantity of matter which the molecule contains: 
which relation, as far as we can perceive, is not only the sole cir- 
cumstance common to the molecules of different bodies, but that 
which of all others is the most likely to produce identity in the size 
and shape of these molecules. 

6. When the molecules of bodies in solution do not happen to 
possess the requisite size and shape for cohesion, there is from the 
phenomena every reason to believe, that they occasionally pOG 
the power, as it were, of making up the necessary form, by attach- 
ing to themselves the molecules of other bodies. Now, bodies bo 
attached may be considered as acting a sort of complementary 
part; that is to say, they may be supposed to complete the figure or 
lize of the molecule, so as to adapt it for combining in a certain 
manner. Thus the water of crystallization (and perhaps occasion- 
ally other matters) appears in the greater number of instances to 
perform an office of this kind, and to be in fact strictly complc- 



LAWS OF CHEMICAL COMBINATION. 75 

mentary to that particular figure and size of the molecules, which 
may be supposed to be requisite for enabling them, not only to com- 
bine the more readily with each other, but at the same time, to form 
a symmetrical solid or crystal* 

One or two other circumstances connected with this part of our 
subject will be better understood after we have considered a little 
more in detail, the combinations of bodies with reference to their 
weights, and the absolute quantity of matter which they contain. 
To this most interesting inquiry, therefore, we shall in the next place 
proceed, confining ourselves, however, as before, principally to the 
elements of water, hydrogen and oxygen. 

It has been found by experiment that the same volumes of diffe- 
rent bodies in the gaseous state have very different weights. Thus 
for instance a volume of oxygen weighs sixteen times as much as 
the same volume of hydrogen. Hence as the number of self- repul- 
sive molecules in each of these gases is presumed to be the same, 
the weight of the self-repulsive molecule of oxygen must of course be 
sixteen times greater than that of hydrogen ; and generally, the 
weights of the self-repulsive molecules of all bodies will be as the 
specific gravities of these bodies in the gaseous state, or will bear 
certain simple relations to these specific gravities. This relation in 
weight among the molecules of bodies constitutes the basis of what 
is called the Atomic theory, proposed, some years ago by Dr. Dalton, 
who established the most important facts, that bodies do not, as 
formerly supposed, combine at random, but in definite proportions 
by weight; and if the preceding doctrines be well founded, it is 
evident they cannot combine otherwise.! As however water is 
composed of one volume of oxygen united with two volumes of 
hydrogen, the relative weights of the hydrogen and oxygen in 
water will be, not as 1 to 16, but as 1 to 8 only; wmile the weight 
of the self-repulsive molecule of steam will be 9. Hence, as one of 
the other of the elements of water is usually made the basis of the 
atomic numbers, this difference between the volumes and the com- 
bining weights of its elements has produced considerable confusion, 
and has given rise to much needless discussion. As a mere matter 
of convenience it is certainly preferable to consider the two volumes 

* There is every reason to believe that one variety of isomorphism is effected on 
the principles here stated; and that the molecules of different substances, by at- 
tracting- to themselves different quantities of water, or of other matters, may ulti- 
mately make up compound molecules similar to those of the bodies with which 
they may happen to be mixed, and may thus enter indiscriminately with these 
bodies into the crystalline form. Such a state of things is calculated to baffle the 
mere chemist, however expert; though it is probable, that if carefully examined 
and understood, an intermixture of this kind might be detected by the optical pro- 
perties of the crystal. 

f The reader is referred to " An Introduction to the Atomic Theory," recently 
published by Dr. Daubeny, Professor of Chemistry, at Oxford, for an interesting 
and able inquiry into the principles of this theory. 



70 CHEMISTRY. 

of hydrogen as one atom, (to use the language of Dr. Dalton), in 
which case oxygen will be 8, and water 9 ; but a strictly philosophical 
arrangement, supposing the principles we have advanced be well 
founded, would require that the volume in all instances should be 
made the molecular unit; in which case, the relative weights of 
the self-repulsive molecules of hydrogen and oxygen, as above men- 
tioned, will be as 1 to 16. 

In this country two volumes of hydrogen, as we have said, are 
usually considered as one atom, or unity, in which case oxygen is 8; 
but some have chosen instead of hydrogen, to make oxygen unity 
or 10, in which case hydrogen of course will be the one-eighth of 
1 or of 10, that is to say, .125 or 1.25; and water, instead of 9, will 
be 1.125 or 11.25. It matters not which of these series of numbers, 
or whether any other be employed, so that the same relative propor- 
tions be observed among them ; but the first series is that most gene- 
rally adopted, and is upon the whole the most convenient. In the 
above manner the atomic weights, as they are termed, of all bodies 
capable of assuming the gaseous form can be easily obtained ; but in 
those bodies that do not assume the gaseous form, in their simple state. 
but in some state of combination only, we are obliged to deduce the 
weight of the primary molecule from that of the compound. Thus 
carbon in its elementary state is incapable of assuming the gaseous 
form ; but combined with oxygen it forms carbonic acid gas, one 
volume of which weighs 22 times as much as our standard two 
volumes of hydrogen. Now it has been found by other experiments, 
that of these 22 parts, 16 are oxygen. The remaining 6 must there- 
fore be carbon; and accordingly 6 is the number upon our scale 
representing carbon, and the proportion, with reference to which, 
this body always enters into composition. In the case of bodies, as 
for instance, lime, which are incapable of assuming a gaseous form 
either alone or in combination, we are obliged to trust solely to 
analysis; thus common marble or carbonate of lime, as it is termed 
by chemists, is found to be composed of 22 parts of carbonic acid, 
and 28 parts of lime; 28 therefore represents upon our scale the 
atomic weight of lime, and so of all others. 

It may be observed that we have spoken as if the atomic weights 
of bodies were related to one another by multiple ; that is to say, 
were all multiples of some common unit. Now this opinion has 
been maintained by some, while it has been denied by others; who 
admitting that multiples in weight are necessary to the union of the 
same body, both chemically and cohesive!}/, will not admit that they 
are necessary to the union of different bodies. The matter is one 
that in the present imperfect state of chemistry can hardly be deter- 
mined l>v experiment; for what with the difficulty, or rather impos- 
sibility, of procuring bodies in a perfectly isolated form, and the un- 
avoidable imperfections of all chemical processes, we can scarcely 
hope to arrive within the necessary limits of precision. It' the above 



LAWS OF CHEMICAL COMBINATION. 77 

views of molecular relations however, be well founded, it seems al- 
most impossible to arrive at any other conclusion, than that the com- 
bining weights of all bodies are intimately related by multiple; 
though to enter further upon the subject here would be quite foreign 
to our p esent purpose.* 

Lastly, it may be remarked that the numbers at present conven- 
tionally employed by chemists, to represent what have been called 
the atomic weights of bodies, are so convenient that they will not 
readily, nor indeed ought lightly, to be set aside; though there is 
reason to believe that many of them require revision, and are des- 
tined to undergo material alterations, even as the subject is at present 
understood. If the views however which we have advanced be 
correct, these numbers certainly do not represent nature ; for as we 
have already stated, a strictly philosophical arrangement can be 
rationally founded only upon the volumes of bodies in the gaseous 
state, in which state some common volume in all instances should be 
considered as the molecular unity. Now, as in most instances, this 
molecular unity seems capable of subdivision, of course the number 
made to represent it can hardly ever be supposed to be a prime 
number. Hence, as combining molecules of bodies exist both 
below and above the molecular unity, they may often (perhaps al- 
ways) be represented by a series. Thus suppose 9 to represent the 
molecular unity or volume of water, and that this be subdivided into 
3 (which it is at least, and probably into a much greater number); the 
molecular combinations of water may be represented by the series, 
3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, &c. We mean to say, the molecules of water 
as they actually enter into a combination in different bodies, may be 
supposed to be represented by these numbers; while, by way of dis- 
tinguishing the different molecules, those below 9, may be desig- 
nated generally sufr-molecules, and those above sz^e?--molecules ; 
and the molecular unity itself may be simply called the molecule, 
or in the gaseous state the self-repulsive molecule; distinctions, 

* For the sake of those who are interested in such matters, one or two of the 
leading- arguments may be briefly stated. We have rendered it probable that when 
two or more molecules of the same body combine cohesively, they form a compound, 
which though having properties in some degree allied to those of the original 
molecule, nevertheless usually possesses a specific difference, (that is to say, the 
chemical polarities of the compound molecule as modified by the union, will be 
different from those of the simple molecule). But a body possessing a specific 
difference may be supposed to be a new body, and thus capable of combining in 
future, not cohesively, but chemically with our original molecule. Now in such a 
case it is evident that the weight of the original molecule and that of the new 
compound molecule must have a certain relation to one another by multiple. If 
our space admitted, it would not, we believe, be difficult to point out instances 
of such combination among chemical phenomena; but we shall merely observe,, 
that many of the substances at present considered as elementary, appear to be 
constituted upon the above principles from some common molecule of a still 
more elementary character. Moreover this law seems to hold universally through- 
out nature; and those substances related to the same molecule, in general consti- 
tute a natural group or family, having certain properties in common. 

7* 



78 CHEMISTRY. 

which for the sake of convenience, we have adhered to throughout 
these remarks, and which we have thought it thus necessary to 
explain.* 



Section III. 
General Remarks upon Chemical Compounds. 

The number of chemical compounds is so great that an attempt 
to enumerate them here would be quite out of place; we shall 
therefore content ourselves with stating, as briefly as possible, the 
general principles upon which these compounds are formed. 

We have already pointed out many of the more remarkable 
compounds, when speaking of simple bodies; and in subsequent 
parts of this volume we shall have occasion to allude to others. In 
speaking of simple bodies we showed that by far the greater num- 
ber of them occur in the metallic state, and are incapable of ex- 
istence upon the surface of our globe, on account of the tendency 
they possess to enter into\ combination, particularly with oxygen. 
It would seem also from the intensity of the properties and the 
general incompatibility of the simple bodies with the present order 
of things, that their compounds, rather than themselves, were the 
objects the Author of nature had in view. Hence perhaps we are 
more immediately interested in the character of the compounds 
than in that of the elements themselves. Of the general nature of 
these compounds, the following observations, taken chiefly from Dr. 
Thomson's work on chemistry, will serve to convey some idea to 
the general reader. 

The compounds which bodies form with one another are either 
primary or secondary. By primary compounds are usually un- 
derstood those which are formed by the combination of two or 
more simple bodies with each other; while by secondary com- 
pounds are meant the compounds formed by the union of the pri- 
mary compounds with each other. 

The primary compounds naturally divide themselves into three 
grand classes, viz. acids, alkalies or bases, and neutrals; on car!) oi' 
which we shall make a few remarks. 

Of Acids. Formerly it was considered as requisite that bodies, 
in order to belong to the class of acids, should have a soar taste, 
should be soluble in water, and should have the property of redden- 
ing vegetable blue colours: and these properties do indeed belong 
to some of the most common and powerful acids. But there are 

* The above terms are to he considered as a temporary expedient only. If 
these views be established \< will not perhaps be difficult to devise hereafter both 
a notation and a noraemclature founded upon them. At present such an attempt 
would he ridiculous. 



CHEMICAL COMPOUNDS. 79 

various acids which have no taste, which are not soluble in water, 
and some which are incapable of altering the colour of the most 
delicate vegetable blues ; hence the term acid, as at present employ- 
ed by chemists, is understood to denote a substance which has the 
property of combining with, and neutralizing, alkalies or bases. 
The celebrated Lavoisier endeavoured to prove that oxygen con- 
stitutes an essential ingredient of all the acids ; but later observa- 
tions have shown that not only oxygen, but the analogous principles, 
chlorine, bromine, iodine, and fluorine, are also capable of forming 
acids by uniting with several of the acidifiable bases. Still more 
recently, certain compounds of cyanogen, (a primary compound of 
carbon and azote,) of sulphur, of selenium, and of tellurium with the 
acidifiable bases, have been ranked among the acids; so that the 
acids at present known may be divided into nine classes, viz. oxy- 
gen acids, chlorine acids, bromine acids, iodine acids, fluorine acids, 
cyanogen acids, sulphur acids, selenium acids, and tellurium acids. 

The oxygen acids are more numerous and better understood in 
general than the other classes ; they may be subdivided into two 
kinds ; those with a single base ; and those with a compound base. 
The acids w T ith a single base amount to between thirty and forty, 
and include most of the best known and most important of those 
used in chemical processes and in the arts; such as carbonic acid, 
sulphuric acid, phosphoric acid, nitric acid, &c. The oxygen acids 
with a compound base are chiefly derived from the vegetable or 
animal kingdoms ; they are still more numerous than those with a 
single base, the number at present known amounting to upwards of 
sixty ; as instances may be mentioned the tartaric acid, the citric 
acid, the malic acid, the lithic acid, &c. 

The chlorine acids are perhaps as numerous as those containing 
oxygen, but they have been much less studied, and are, consequent- 
ly, much less understood. One of the most familiarly known be- 
longing to this class is the muriatic or hydrochloric acid, which is 
composed of chlorine, united with hydrogen : and here may be 
noticed a remarkable circumstance, that not only chlorine, but all 
the other allied principles, when they combine with hydrogen, form 
powerful acids ; w r hile the compound of oxygen with hydrogen, as 
we have formerly noticed, is water, a substance altogether dissimi- 
lar. Such is the wonderful and inexplicable nature of chemical com- 
binations ! 

The acids containing bromine, iodine, and fluorine, are still less 
satisfactorily known than those containing chlorine. As just ob- 
served, the acids formed by these different principles with hydrogen, 
viz. the hydrobromic, the hydriodic and the hydrofluoric acids, possess 
the most decided properties and are best understood. 

The cyanogen acids are numerous and important, as most of them 
are poisonous; thus the compound of cyanogen and hydrogen (ana- 
logous to those above mentioned) is the hydrocyanic, or prussic acid, 



80 CHEMISTRY. 

one of the most virulent poisons in nature, and instantly fatal to or- 
ganic life in every form. 

Of the remaining acids, the sulphur acids the selenium acids, and 
the tellurium acitfs, we know very little. Those with which we are 
at present best acquainted are analogous to the preceding acids, and 
are formed by the union of the different principles with hydrogen. 
These acids were formerly known under the names of sulphuretted, 
seleniated, and telluretted hydrogen; but some chemists have now 
given them new names conformably to the above nomenclature. 

Of alkalies and bases. Bodies of this class, are, like the acids, 
composed of different elementary principles, and particularly of cer- 
tain metals, combined with oxygen, chlorine, &c, but usually in less 
proportions than in the acids. Hence the alkaline bases are as nu- 
merous as the acids, and may be divided in a similar manner into 
oxygen alkalies, chlorine alkalies, &c. Of these the oxygen alkalies 
are by far the best known and most important, and they may, like 
the oxygen acids, be subdivided into two kinds, viz. those with a sin- 
gle base, and those with a compound base. The alkalies with a 
single base include all the well known common alkaline bodies, pot- 
ash, soda, lime, baryta, &c; while the alkalies with a compound base 
are chiefly from the vegetable kingdom, and comprehend the newly 
discovered alkaline matters, so successfully introduced into medi- 
cine; such as quinine, from bark, morphine, from opium, &c, the 
composition of which at present is not well understood. Ammonia 
or the volatile alkali, may perhaps be referred to this class of alka- 
lies; though its composition as consisting of hydrogen and azote 
only, without oxygen, may be considered as constituting an excep- 
tion or anomaly. 

The other alkaline bodies into which chlorine, iodine, &c, enter, 
are very little known, and some perhaps may be even inclined to 
doubt their existence. 

Of neutral compounds. These are arranged by Dr. Thomson, 
under seven heads, the mere naming of which will probably be all 
that is required, to convey to the general reader a sufficient notion 
of their nature. They are water, spirits or alcohol, ether, cthal, (a 
peculiar oily substance obtained from spermaceti) volatile oils, fixed 
ails, and bitumens. 

Such is a summary of the primary compounds and of the princi- 
ples upon which they have been most recently arranged. We come 
now to consider briefly 

The secondary compounds, or those formed by the union <)( the 
primary compounds. As the neutral primary compounds (if we 
except water) enter into few combinations, it is obvious thai the se- 
condary compounds must consist chiefly of substances formed by the 
union of the other two general classes of bodies,, namely, of acids 
and alkalies. These secondary compounds are usually denominated 
salts; they constitute a very numerous and most important class o( 



CHEMICAL COMPOUNDS. 81 

bodies; and as resulting from the mutual union and saturation of 
all the different principles capable of combining with each other, 
they of course are more abundant than any other bodies; indeed, the 
surface of our globe, may in a great measure, be considered as made 
up of them. The term salt was originally confined to common 
salt; but by a singular fate, this body, as being composed of chlorine 
and sodium only, is now excluded from the class of salts : salts 
being, as we have just said, considered by chemists, to be formed by 
the union of acids and alkalies only. As there are nine classes of 
acids of course there must be as many classes of salts ; of these, 
the oxygen acid salts are by far the best known and the most im- 
portant; and, indeed, this class includes the greater number of those 
salts employed by chemists or in the arts. If these salts be arranged 
according to their bases, which perhaps upon the whole, in the pre- 
sent state of our knowledge, is the best mode of arranging them, 
they will be found to constitute upwards of fifty genera; and if we 
consider that each of these genera includes, in most cases a great 
number of species, we may form some idea of 'the wonderful variety 
of bodies existing in nature, and with the properties of which the 
chemist is required to be conversant. Familiar instances of the 
oxygen acid salts are nitre, common chalk, gypsum; various metallic 
salts, as the white, green and blue vitriols, &c. &c. 

Of the chlorine and the other classes of salts very little is known, 
and this little is chiefly confined to the salts composed of these prin- 
ciples and of hydrogen. The hydrochloric or muriatic acid com- 
bines with ammonia, and forms the well-known compound sal-am- 
moniac, a salt supposed to be a true hydrochlorate or muriate. But 
this is the only instance known ; and in all other analogous instances, 
the hydrogen of the hydrochloric acid and the oxygen of the base, 
unite to form water, which is separated or separable; and thus the 
chlorine and the metallic base are left in union by themselves in the 
state of a chlwide. This is the case, for instance, with common 
salt; which, as we before said, is in reality a chloride of sodium, that 
is to say, a simple compound of chlorine and the metal sodium. 
Similar remarks appear to be applicable to the other analogous 
compounds. It must be confessed, however, that our knowledge 
with respect to all these matters is at present in a very unsatisfac- 
tory state, and is probably destined at no very distant time to un- 
dergo a complete revolution. 



82 CHEMISTRY. 



Section IV. 



Recapitulation. General Reflections on the Subjects treated of in 
the preceding chapters. 

The subjects considered in the present chapter may be viewed a? 
a continuation of what has engaged our attention in those that have 
preceded ; and the principal circumstances detailed may be thus re- 
capitulated. 

1. All perfectly gaseous bodies combine with reference to then- 
volume ; that is to say, any volume or bulk of a gas always com- 
bines with an equal volume or bulk of the same or of another gas : 
or with a volume having some simple relation to its own volume, as 
half, or twice as much, &c; and not with any intervening frac- 
tional part of a volume. 

2. The same volume of different gaseous bodies has very different 
weights: hence on the supposition formerly advanced, that all per- 
fectly gaseous bodies under the same pressure and temperature con- 
tain an equal number of self-repulsive molecules, the molecules of 
different gaseous bodies must also have different weights; which 
weights will be as the specific gravities of the gases, and may be 
represented by numbers proportional to these specific gravities. 

3. From the above relation between the volumes and the weights 
of bodies in the gaseous state, it follows, that all bodies must combine 
with reference to their iveights; that is to say, that the same weight 
of the same body (or half or twice as much, &c.) must always 
combine with the same weight (or half or twice as much, &c.) not 
only of the same, but of every other body. 

4. The numbers representing the relations among the specific 
gravities of bodies in the gaseous state, are called the molecular or 
atomic weights of the different bodies. 

Such is the foundation of what is usually called the Atonic Theory: 
the principles of which are generally admitted as regulating chem- 
ical combinations. 

We shall now conclude the present Treatise on chemistry with a 
few remarks more especially relating to the object of these volumes. 
And here, it may be observed, once for all, that throughout the pre- 
ceding pages, as well as in what follows, we have endeavoured to 
state each argument as distinctly as possible, without encumbering 
it too much with details — in short, to illustrate principles rather than 
to enumerate particulars. When the principles of a cumulative 
argument are understood, the details are readily supplied by the 
reader. 

First. On taking a general and collective review of the facts 



GENERAL ARGUMENTS. 83 

brought forward in the preceding chapters, the circumstances calcu- 
lated to strike our attention in the first place, are the wonderful co- 
incidence between the priority of existence, and the universal pre- 
valence of the primordial agents and elements of nature, on the one 
hand; and on the other, the beautiful adaptation of the agents and 
elements of a later and more subordinate character to these prim- 
ordial principles ; so that when the whole are taken together they 
constitute one harmonious and connected series, in which all the 
various parts are mutually adapted and dependent. In the follow- 
ing chapters we shall have occasion to notice many of the more 
important of these subordinate arrangements ; at present we shall 
chiefly confine ourselves to a general review of what has been al- 
ready stated. 

We are told by the inspired historian that after matter had been 
created and endowed with motion, the next Almighty fiat was "let 
there be light;" and if we suppose this fiat, to have included the other 
imponderable forms of matter, heat, &c, how entirely do the whole 
phenomena of nature accord with the sacred narrative? Light, 
and probably its attendant heat, are the most generally diffused and 
universal of all the subordinate agencies ; so much so, that they are 
not confined to our globe or even system, but extend throughout the 
universe. Their laws and influences, therefore, seem to be as ge- 
neral and as necessary to the present order of things, as those of 
gravitation itself. The priority of existence also of light and of 
heat is self-evident; for until they existed, nothing else, as we are 
acquainted with things, could have had existence. Now all subse- 
quent creations have been made with the most exact regard to the 
influences of these prior agencies. The globe, for example, which 
we inhabit, is at a certain distance from the sun, the great centre of 
our system and of light and of heat ; and where of course, accord- 
ing to the laws which light and heat obey, they must act with a 
certain intensity. Hence it was necessary that the materials of this 
globe should have a certain degree of fixity, otherwise they could 
not exist. If indeed there had been no ulterior views, with re- 
spect to the destination of this globe; all that would have been 
requisite, would have been to have made it sufficiently firm to move 
through space ; and for this purpose the more homogeneous and 
compact its composition had been the better. But what are the 
facts'? Our globe, though stable, so far from being homogeneous, 
is composed of a variety of substances all differing from each 
other in their properties ; some being solid, some fluid, some aeri- 
form under the common circumstances in which they have been 
placed, and all beautifully adapted, both by their physical and 
chemical properties, to the purposes they fulfil in nature ; and 
what is more, to the purposes they were designed to fulfil in 
nature ; for on no other supposition would their properties be in- 
telligible. 



84 CHEMISTRY. 

Thus water, within very narrow limits of temperature, is a solid, 
or a liquid, or a gas ; and yet these very narrow limits of tempera- 
ture, neither more nor less, are precisely those which exist upon the 
surface of our globe ; where they are the natural and necessary re- 
sults of its situation in the universe, and of the general laws which 
govern the distribution of light and heat. Had the properties of 
this body been other than what they are, or had the general tem- 
perature of our globe been different, water would have existed 
altogether in the solid or in the gaseous state, and its most important 
properties would have been unknown. Hence it seems almost im- 
possible to arrive at any other conclusion, than that the temperature 
of the earth, and the properties of the water on its surface, have 
been mutually adjusted to each other. And further, since the tem- 
perature of the earth, as just stated, is the natural result of the 
general laws which govern the distribution of heat and of light ; 
the inference must be, that the properties of the water, as the subor- 
dinate and later principle, have, at an after period, been adjusted to 
the prior temperature of the earth. 

If we do not admit of this adjustment, we must suppose that the 
whole has been the result of chance, or of some other unintelligent 
principle : and if water had been the only principle in which such 
adaptations were apparent, the supposition of chance might, per- 
haps, be received; at least it would have been difficult to prove the 
contrary. But when we see similar happy adjustments in every 
object around us, — in the different elements of the air we breathe, 
the soil we tread upon, the rocks in all their varieties, composing 
the solid crust of our globe, not one of which could have been more 
happily contrived for the purposes they fulfil, nor indeed be scarcely 
conceived to exist otherwise than what they are, without destruc- 
tion to the whole of the present arrangements — when we see all 
these things, and duly reflect upon them, it becomes absolutely im- 
possible to admit that so much happy adjustment, so much apparent 
intelligence, so much, in short, of what the veriest sceptic under 
other circumstances would have allowed to have been evidences of 
design, can be evidences of anything else than design, or have re- 
sulted from any unintelligent cause whatever. Hence we are driven 
irresistibly to the only rational conclusions which the premises ap- 
pear to admit of, viz., that all these happy adjustments and adapta- 
tions which we see in nature, are really and truly what they appear 
to be, — so many evidences of design ; and, consequently, that the 
whole have sprung from the will of an intelligent and omnipotent 
Crea or. 

The above inferences arc deduciblc from the plain and obvious 
arrangements of nature, which every one can readily understand : 
but when speaking of elementary bodies we remarked, that in a va- 
riety of instances, their object and use were unknown to us ; and 



GENERAL ARGUMENTS. 85 

before we quit this part of the subject, it may not be out of place to 
consider briefly these difficult points. 

When we see adjustments so wonderful, and such wisdom dis- 
played in those parts of creation which are intelligible to us, we 
cannot imagine that the Being who made them all would act other- 
wise than with wisdom. Hence what we do not understand, or 
what may appear incongruous to us, we naturally and properly refer 
to our own ignorance. The phenomena of chemistry are so ex- 
traordinary and often so Unexpected, that little in general can be 
predicated of them, beyond what is actually known. The most ex- 
perienced chemist, therefore, as compared with the Great Chemist 
of nature, is immeasurably deficient ; and can only contemplate 
His wonderful operations with astonishment and awe, and own 
them unapproachable. Who then can tell what design is latent un- 
der apparent incongruities ? What elaborate contrivances and 
adaptations may have been requisite to have produced water or car- 
bon, or any other essential principle, out of the materials and in 
conformity to the laws, by means of which the Great Author of na- 
ture chose to operate? Who can tell that the minor evil may not 
have been essential to the existence of the greater good? That the 
poisonous metals, for instance, are not, as it were, the refuse of the 
great chemical processes by which the more important and essential 
principles of nature have been eliminated? That these poisonous 
principles have not been left with such subdued properties as 
scarcely to interfere with His great design, — not because they could 
not have been prevented — not because they could not have been re- 
moved — but on purpose and designedly to display His power ? 

Secondly. If we pursue the subject a step further, and inquire 
into the means by which all the beautiful adaptations we have been 
considering are effected, we shall find that they principally depend 
upon a certain due adjustment to each other of the qualities and quan- 
tities of the different substances, and more especially of the different 
elementary principles, of which our globe is composed. These ad- 
justments are so universal and so varied in their character, that to 
enumerate them all, would be little else than to enumerate all the 
objects in nature ; we shall therefore content ourselves with a few 
of the most familiar of each kind. 

In the first place, with respect to the adjustment of quality. Let 
us consider for a moment and by way of illustration, what would 
happen if the qualities of water or of air were to undergo a change: 
were, for example, the important fluid water to become sour or 
sweet, or heavier or lighter, or indeed anything but what it is ; or 
were the air of the atmosphere to acquire odour or colour, or to be- 
come opaque : by either of such changes, slight as they appear, the 
whole of the present economy of nature would be deranged. Again, 
if the qualities of the acid existing in the common salt of the ocean 
were to become so modified as to quit the alkiali with which it is at 

8 



86 CHEMISTRY. 

present associated, and to combine with the limestone composing our 
rocks; while the carbonic acid, thus set free, was diffused through 
the atmosphere : in such a case a large part of the solid crust of 
our globe would rapidly disappear and become dissolved in the wa- 
ters of the ocean, which would thus be totally unfitted for their 
present purposes; while the liberated carbonic acid would instantly 
prove fatal to animal life. Such would be the consequences of these 
trifling changes in the qualities of a few substances only : nor is it 
possible scarcely to conceive any other change that would not be 
attended with similar results. 

In the next place, the importance of the adjustments of quantity is 
equally striking. Let us, for instance, conceive what would happen 
from the simple inversion of the quantities of dry land and of sea as 
they now exist : in such a case there would not be enough of water to 
preserve the surface of the land in a moist state, and the greater 
part would be in the situation of the deserts of Africa, and totally 
unfit for the habitation of organized beings. When speaking of the 
elements of water, we alluded to the happy adjustment of the quan- 
tities of oxygen and hydrogen in the world ; and to the conse- 
quences that would have ensued if hydrogen, instead of oxygen, had 
predominated. The same remarks apply to almost every other 
element ; for example, had the proportions of chlorine, and of the 
soda in common salt; or of the carbonic acid, and of the lime in 
our marbles, been anything but what they are, the one or the other 
of the ingredients must have been in excess, and the present order 
of things could never have existed. Again, were gold suddenly to 
become as abundant as iron, and iron as rare as gold ; were the car- 
bon existing in the present useful form of fossil coals, to assume the 
crystallized form and become diamonds ; the whole order of nature 
would be subverted, and the whole of the present arrangements be 
involved in ruin. Those who deny the argument of design, of 
course, consider such suppositions as these absurd ; and if carried 
too far, they doubtless, under any circumstances, lose much of their 
effect; but admitting the argument of design, the judicious applica- 
tion of such suppositions is well calculated to place the advantages 
and effects of certain arrangements in a more striking point of view 
than can be obtained by any other means. More especially, such 
suppositions, by showing the wonderful adaptations of subsequent 
creations to prior existences, are admirably calculated to illustrate 
ihe fitness, and consequently the apparent design displayed in the 
formation of these prior existences: and thus to show that they 
must have been created with reference to ulterior purposes. 

The argument of prior arrangements and the subsequent adap- 
tation to these arrangements of other creations is one o\ such in- 
terest, and its consequences are so important, that perhaps it may 
noi be deemed irrelevant if, for further illustration, we recapitulate 
the principal points in a condensed form. For this purpose we 



GENERAL ARGUMENTS. 87 

shall select the obvious and familiar relation between water and air, 
and plants and animals. 

The prior existence of water and air as compared with that of 
plants and animals, is established by the fact, that water and air can 
exist without plants and animals, but that plants and animals cannot 
exist without water and air. Hence as water and air must have 
existed with all their present properties before plants and animals 
were created, the question naturally arises, how water and air came 
to be endowed with their present properties'? We suppose that wa- 
ter and air were created with their present properties, with reference 
to the future existence of plants and animals; and on this supposi- 
tion the whole becomes intelligible. Further, that this is the true 
explanation, and that water and air have not obtained their present 
properties by chance or accident is rendered still more probable by 
the following considerations. We have said that water and air can 
exist without plants and animals ; now as far as we know, water 
and air might have existed for ever without plants and animals ; at 
least the contrary cannot be proved or even rendered probable. 
Moreover, plants and animals, as involving new principles of a 
higher order (those of life), never could by any law of nature, ne- 
cessary or probable, have resulted from an inferior agency. Hence 
there is no necessary relation of cause and effect between the prior 
existence of water and air, and the subsequent existence of plants 
and animals ; as some seem to have supposed. Hence too it follows 
irresistibly, that plants and animals have been created, and their 
properties adapted to those of water and of air at some subsequent 
period, and by some external and superior agent. But the agent 
that could thus create plants and animals', could surely have created 
the water and air likewise ; nay, must have done so ; for, as the 
prior and subsequent creations taken together, evidently form but 
different parts of one and the same general design, the whole design 
must have been the work of one and the same intelligent Agent. 

It yet remains to draw the attention of the reader to another cir- 
cumstance connected with these adjustments in quality and quantity, 
viz. the double adjustment. Of the causes of the qualities of bodies 
we know but little, and that little is founded solely on experience. 
We see that these qualities are admirably fitted for their apparent 
purposes, and hence (as they might have been different), we arrive 
at the probable conclusion that they have been so fitted by design. 
The collocation of quantities and numbers, exactly where they have 
been required, adds much to the probability of this conclusion; as 
such a collocation could hardly have been other than the act of an 
intelligent Being. But the double adjustment in quality and quantity 
of the same thing at the same time, adds almost infinitely to the 
weight of evidence ; and indeed furnishes a proof in favour of de- 
sign and of its consequences, which amounts- to all but actual de- 
monstration. 



88 CHEMISTRY. 

Thirdly. There is another point of view in which we may consi- 
der what has been stated, and by which we shall at the same time 
be brought a step nearer to the existing order of things. Amidst all 
that endless diversity of property, and all the changes constantly 
going on in the world around us, we cannot avoid being struck 
with the general tendency of the whole to a state of repose or equili- 
brium. Moreover, this tendency to equilibrium is not confined to 
the ponderable elements, but prevails also in the same striking de- 
gree among the imponderable agencies, heat and light; which as we 
have seen, cannot be anywhere long retained in a state of excess, 
on account of their natural disposition to acquire a certain state of 
equilibrium ; depending generally upon the place of the earth in the 
solar system. Now, the formation of this state of equilibrium, and 
its preservation, may be considered as the results of those wonderful 
adjustments among the qualities and quantities of bodies above alluded 
to — the qualities being such as to neutralize each other's activity, 
while the quantities are so apportioned as to leave one or two only 
predominant. 

The preceding is a general view of the subject. But it is to be 
observed, that the state of equilibrium here described is not abso- 
lutely fixed ; as such an unyielding condition would be not less in- 
compatible with the present order of things than a condition of un- 
limited change. The whole are so adjusted, therefore, that slight 
deviations, or oscillations about the neutral point of rest or equili- 
brium, take place, and are even necessary, as the world is at pre- 
sent constituted ; though these changes are bounded within very 
narrow limits, and greater deviations would instantly prove fatal to 
the whole. If we inquire into the principles upon which these slight 
deviations take place and are regulated, we shall find still further 
reason to admire the wonderful arrangements displayed. When 
speaking of the elements of water, we observed how much the sta- 
bility of nature depended upon the proportions of the elements of this 
fluid ; and that one of its elements, oxygen, existed in excess, and in 
a free state, in the air. Now, it is to the agency of this oxygen in a 
free state, and to the annual and diurnal motions of the earth, that 
most of the minor operations going on around us are to be referred. 
The universal presence and peculiar properties of oxygen are such 
as to interfere more or less with everything: while the motions of 
the earth keep everything in a constant state of activity and change. 
Yet, the general tendency of the whole, as before observed} is to- 
wards a state of equilibrium ; and the principles upon which this 
tendency operates, are very intelligible. Thus all bodies below the 
neutral point of rest, if we may-be allowed the expression; thai is to 
say, all bodies of a marked elementary character, have a tendency 
to combine with each other synthetically; while beyond the neutral 
point, bodies have very little tendency to combine further; and if 
by intention on the part of the operator, or from any Other cause. 



GENERAL ARGUMENTS. 



80 



they be so made to combine, when left to their own operations, they 
speedily revert or oscillate back to the point of equilibrium. 

Such are the means by which the state of equilibrium we are con- 
sidering has been produced, and by which it is still preserved; nor 
is it. possible to reflect upon the subject for a moment without ar- 
riving at the conclusion, that this state of equilibrium possesses all 
the characters of a prior arrangement, to which organized beings 
have been subsequently adapted. We are thus led, in the next place, 
to make a few remarks upon the subsequent adaptation of organized 
beings to the pre-established equilibrium of nature. 

The present races of organized beings in all instances are pro- 
duced only by the process of generation ; and if they were annihi- 
lated, there are no natural operations going on in the world, which 
can lead us to believe, that by any law of nature such organized be- 
ings could be reproduced. That is to say, we cannot conceive that 
hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and azote, with heat and light, &c. from 
what we know of their properties, would ever be able, of their own 
accord, so to combine as to form a plant or an animal. Hence, when 
plants and animals were first produced, it is evident that there must 
have been a power or agent in operation, which has long since dis- 
continued so to operate; and that this power or agent not only created 
plants and animals ; but at the same time imparted to them a capa- 
bility of perpetuating their existence, for a period, at least, commen- 
surate with that state of equilibrium in which they have been placed. 
Now, whether we consider the power or agent who accomplished 
all these things, to have been the Deity himself operating imme- 
diately, which is most probable; or whether we consider with some, 
that He operated by delegated agencies and laws, the result is the 
same as far as our argument is concerned; the object of which ar- 
gument is to show, that the present races of organized beings are 
somehow or other influenced by the same general laws which ap- 
pear to regulate inorganic matters. That is to say, organized be- 
ings at the present time, are at least as fixed and permanent in their 
nature, as the state of equilibrium in which they have been placed; 
and consequently no new plants or new animals can, as the world 
now exists, be imagined to be produced without a new and specific 
act of creation ; or at least, without an entire change in the standard 
of equilibrium. 

We have alluded to the commencement of the present order of 
things, and to a possible state of change in the condition of equili- 
brium : perhaps it may not be amiss to make a few further remarks 
upon these points. That the present order of things most certainly 
has had a beginning; and as certainly will come to an end, we can- 
not doubt; the questions are, when was this beginning; when will 
be this end? Of the end of course we can know nothing: the be- 
ginning is less obscure; and there are indelible impressions left 
upon the materials and structure of our globe, which throw no ordi- 

8* 



90 CHEMISTRY. 

nary light upon this question. The consideration of the changes 
which our earth has undergone, however, belongs to another depart- 
ment: we shall only observe that these changes appear to be of two 
distinct orders, which have alternated with one another in succes- 
sion. The first of these orders of changes seems to have been of a 
slow and gradual kind, and such as might be supposed to take 
place during a state of things, more or less like the present, and ex- 
isting for a considerable period. The changes of the second order, 
on the contrary, have evidently been violent, sudden, and disruptive, 
of comparatively short duration, and differing exceedingly in degree 
and in extent. In general they appear to have operated Irom within ; 
but whether altogether from internal or from external influences, is 
unknown to us. Now, it is remarkable that these successive alterna- 
tions seem each time to have changed the standard of equilibrium; 
and that during the state of comparative quietude, or the interval of 
equilibrium between the convulsions, organized beings have existed, 
adapted to the exigencies of that particular state of equilibrium; and 
which beings must have been successively created : moreover, the 
later creations gradually approach to those at present in existence. 
Hence, the change in the standard of organization seems to have 
been not only simultaneous with the change in the state of equili- 
brium ; but doth appear to have been progressively raised after each 
convulsion. Finally, the last general catastrophe of the disruptive 
order was evidently a deluge.* Such are the conclusions which 
geologists have deduced from a careful survey of that part of the 
crust of the earth to which they have access ; and these conclusions 
are of the most important kind. In particular, by demonstrating the 
existence of successive adaptations to different successive states of 
equilibrium, they place the argument of design in a new light, and 
add in no small degree to its force. This part of the subject, how- 
ever, belongs to the geologist, to whom, for the present, we shall 
leave it. 

Fourthly. The argument of design as connected with the subject 
of equilibrium above treated of, may be considered yet in another 
point of view. In this state of equilibrium we have observed that the 
properties of bodies, as they actually exist around us, are all so sub- 

* If we judge from what we see going 1 on in nature around us, and from the little 
tendency there appears to be in things at present to combine into new forms, we 
must be almost led to the conclusion that the developement of new elements, as 
well as of new agents, is necessary to produce new and specific arrangements. May 
we not then infer that during those periodic convulsions alluded to in (lie text, new 
elements have been developed, or old ones decomposed into others of a higher ami 
more elementary kind; and that in virtue of the general laws in operation, these 
new elements have subsequently combined to form series of new arrangements ? 
Of course this supposition is intended to apply only to the meant adopted by 
the Deity to effect his purpose. The formation and selection of these new ele- 
ments must in all instances be supposed to result immediately from his will and 
agency. 



GENERAL ARGUMENTS. 9l 

dued and passive in their character, that no one predominates over, 
or excludes the other. Now, when we reflect that almost all these 
bodies are compounds, and when we compare the properties of these 
compounds with the properties of the elements composing them, it is 
impossible not to infer, that the properties of the compounds rather 
than those of the elements, were, at their origin, the objects contem- 
plated. That is to say; in order that the compounds might be per- 
fect, the elements calculated to produce them, were created essen- 
tially such as these compounds might require, without reference to 
the secondary properties of the elements themselves ; which were 
left to be determined as the more general laws of matter might de- 
cide. For instance, the properties of hydrogen in water, and of 
chlorine and sodium in common salt, not being required in the 
economy of nature, the properties of these elements have not been 
made compatible with organic existence ; and the whole attention 
(if such a term may be applied to the operations of the Deity) has 
been directed to the properties of the compounds, w j ater and salt. 
Thus, on the one hand, where required, we have the most striking 
adaptation of property ; while on the other, where not required, this 
adaptation of property has not been attended to : nor is this true of 
water and salt only, but of almost every other compound in nature. 
Nay, what is more, the incongruities of the whole system have, with 
the most consummate skill, been thrown, as it were, among those 
properties not required. Hence the arrangements of nature viewed 
in this light, not only exhibit novel evidences, but some of the most 
striking evidences of design that we possess. 

The subject of the incongruous properties of bodies is one of great 
interest. We have seen that many of the elementary principles are 
poisonous; and that almost all of them, if liberated from their affini- 
ties, and sent abroad into the w r orld, like so many demons let loose, 
would instantly bring destruction upon the whole fabric. Now, why 
should such incompatible properties be necessary to the properties of 
the compounds'? Why, for instance, should the incombustible fluid 
water contain one of the most combustible principles in nature ? or 
the mild and innocuous common salt be composed of two elements, 
which, in their separate state, would instantly destroy life ? Why, 
do we repeat, are these deleterious properties of the elements neces- 
sary to the wholsome condition of the compound? What part do 
they perform ; or what property do they contribute to, or represent? 
These are questions utterly beyond our comprehension, and are 
likely always to remain so. That these incompatible' properties of 
the elements, however, do, in some way, contribute to the perfection 
of the compounds, we cannot doubt; and the only grounds upon 
which such incompatibility seems to admit of explanation is, that it 
results necessarily from those limitations which the Deity has 
thought proper to prescribe to his power, and to which he always 
most rigidly adheres. Moreover, be the reason what it may, it'is 



92 CHEMISTRY. 

evident that these arrangements, so immediately calculated to lead 
to practical difficulties, have been the result of choice. For we can- 
not but believe that an omnipotent Creator, if he had so willed, could 
have made the elements innocuous, as well as the compounds ; nay, 
to our limited understanding this would have been the easiest and 
most natural mode of proceeding. Why then did he choose the ap- 
parently more difficult course 1 Why, to use the language of Paley, 
but " that he might let in and thereby exhibit demonstrations of his 
wisdom." Throughout nature, the exigencies and incongruities ne- 
cessarily arising from the arrangements we have been considering, 
have given occasion for the display of the most astonishing wisdom 
and power. And instead of that jarring and clashing which might 
have been expected from so many conflicting elements, the qualities 
and quantities of these elements have, upon the whole, been so won- 
derfully adjusted to each other, that they neutralize and balance 
each other's evils; and the general result has been, that all have 
finally settled down together into that harmonious state of equili- 
brium before alluded to, so admirably adapted for the existence of 
organic life. 

Fifthly. We have hitherto confined our attention to general prin- 
ciples and arrangements; but the commonest chemical process may 
be made to furnish us with some striking proof of the omnipotence of 
the great Creator. Let us, for example, consider what happens in a 
simple and familiar instance of chemical decomposition ; as when a 
solution of lunar caustic (nitrate of silver) is added to a solution of 
common salt. In this case, the chlorine of the salt combines with the 
silver, and produces a curdy precipitate which falls to the bottom ; 
while the nitric acid combines with the soda, and forms a soluble 
salt which remains in solution. Now, we show 7 ed in a former chap- 
ter, that the minutest fragment of matter appreciable by our senses, 
consists of innumerable molecules. If therefore we suppose a small 
quantity, as an ounce, of the lunar caustic, and a proportionate 
quantity of common salt, to be mixed together; what countless 
myriads of molecules, in a portion of time literally inappreciable, 
must have sought out, and combined each with its fellow, in this 
simple process ! The human mind absolutely recoils from the con- 
templation of objects so completely beyond its powers; for the 
utmost that we can imagine, must fall almost infinitely short of the 
reality. Were we, for illustration, to conceive every human being 
at present in existence, to be collected together into one vast array, 
and to be all dressed exactly alike, and to perform the same military 
manoeuvre at the same moment; we should be probably as far short 
of the actual numbers of similar molecules, each manoeuvring ex- 
actly alike in the above simple experiment, as a single company 
falls short of our congregated army! Again, to take another fami- 
liar illustration, as the working of a common steam engine; we are 
assured that in this simple operation, there are more self-repulsive. 



OBJECTIONS TO DESIGN. 93 

molecules of water always constantly engaged, and conspiring to 
the same end, than there are of quadrupeds in existence upon the 
whole surface of the globe ! The above are designed to illustrate 
the principles of the argument only : the argument itself, like all the 
preceding, is strictly accumulative, and applies more or less to every 
operation in nature. 

Such is a summary sketch of the wonders developed by chemis- 
try; and what an idea do they convey to us of the wisdom and 
of the power of Him who contrived and made the whole! Of the 
capacity of that eternal Mind, who while he directs the universe, at 
the same time takes cognisance and regulates the movements of 
every individual atom in it ! To whom the inmost nature, and end, 
and object of every part are familiar; and of whose comprehensive 
designs the whole forms but a single link, the antecedent and the 
consequent to which are merged alike in infinity ! 



In the preceding pages we have pointed out a few of those won- 
derful arrangements, which to common understandings appear to 
indicate design, and consequently to prove that such arrangements 
are the works of an intelligent and omnipotent Creator. There are, 
however, some minds so obtuse, or so strangely constituted that 
they either cannot, or will not admit the force of these arguments, 
and who consequently deny the evidences of design altogether. The 
consideration of this part of the subject properly belongs to another 
department, to which the reader is referred for details ; we shall 
therefore confine our observations to a brief recapitulation of the 
leading objections to design, and offer such answers to them as are 
more immediately furnished by our own subject. 

The objectors to the argument of design may be divided into two 
classes ; those who denying a First Cause, affect to believe that all 
the beautiful adaptations and arrangements, we see around us, are 
the result of what they call the " necessary and eternal laws of na- 
ture," and who in fact are Atheists, or rather Pantheists, " to whom 
the laws of nature are as gods ;" and those who, without denying a 
First Cause, contend that design cannot be proved; that the ar- 
rangements of external nature, as they appear to us are little more 
than mental delusions ; and that things appear congruous and 
adapted to us, however incongruous they may be in reality, simply 
because we have nothing else than our own intellects with which to 
compare them. 

To the first class of objectors, we may thus briefly reply. The 
" laws of nature," or rather our knowledge of them, may be consi- 
dered as of two kinds ; First, laws founded upon reason or necessity, 
the phenomena regulated by which laws we cannot conceive to be 
otherwise than what they are ; and laws founded upon experience 



94 CHEMISTRY. 

only, among whose dependent and sequent phenomena we can disco- 
ver no necessary relation whatever. Now, few, if any, of the " laws 
of nature" can be proved to belong to the first kind; we know, for 
instance, no reason or necessity why hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, 
and azote must combine to form plants and animals ; we only know- 
that they do so combine, but why and how we know not. Hence, as 
the Atheist cannot prove his "laws of nature" to have a necessary 
existence, he has no right to make the assumption. On the other 
hand, he cannot prove these laws to be eternal; for experience, the 
sole ground upon which his knowledge of them is founded, is de- 
cidedly hostile to this supposition, as we have in the next place 
briefly to show. 

In reasoning from cause to effect in matters of experience, two 
conditions at least are requisite ; first, the effect must be possible, that 
is to say, must not be opposed in any way to the cause, or to the 
facts of the argument; and secondly, it must be probable, or in 
other words, the effects must accord and harmonize generally with 
the accompanying phenomena. But the atheistical doctrine of the 
" eternal laws of nature" seems to us to violate one, if not both these 
conditions. In the first place, as to the facts, or possibility of the 
case. We have seen, that a very superficial observation of the 
world as it exists, and as it obviously has existed within the limits 
that its history can be traced, is sufficient to show, that its course at 
all times has been progressive. That is to say, the world itself be- 
fore arriving at its present condition, has not only undergone a pro- 
gressive series of different states ; but in these different states, dif- 
ferent " laws of nature" have prevailed. In the second place, putting 
the previous history of the world out of the question, and judging 
solely from what we see around us, it appears improbable in the 
highest degree, that the present variable and finite order of. things, 
should constitute a term or link of a uniform and infinite progres- 
sion. The notion therefore that the " laws of nature" have existed 
as they now exist from eternity, if not actually impossible, is so ex- 
ceedingly improbable, that it cannot be admitted for a moment. 
Hence as these laws cannot be proved to have a necessary exist- 
ence, or to have existed from eternity as they now are ; it beeome> 
more than probable that they have had a beginning; and thus the 
inference of a pre-existent Law-maker, and all its consequences are 
at once inevitable. 

We come now to consider the second class of objections to the 
argument of design ; those namely, which are founded 00 the 
grounds that design cannot be proved; and that what we call de- 
sign is little more than mental delusion. We admit at once that 
everything we know of external nature we know from experience 
only; and consequently we admit that what we call design in ex- 
ternal nature is only verty probably design ; thai is to say. cannot be 
proved to be design by any argument founded on reason or necessity. 



OBJECTIONS TO DESIGN, ETC. 95 

But having made this admission, we assert upon the self-same 
grounds, that our opponents cannot, by any argument founded on 
reason or necessity, prove that what we call design, is anything else 
than design ; that is to say, is not design. Now until this be proved 
the force of their objection may be considered as completely neu- 
tralized ; while the objection itself becomes thus reduced to the con- 
dition of a mere sophism, that leaves everything precisely in the 
same state as it was at the beginning. 

Having thus briefly disposed of these objections to the argument 
of design, we finally recur with pleasure to that common-sense veiw 
of the subject which we have already contended for, and which we 
still maintain, viz., that design is independent of the designer ; in 
other words, that design is design, whether exemplified in the works 
of man or in those of his Maker — a view which has been adopted 
by the wise and good in all ages — which has all the probabilities on 
its side, and which alone, of all others, points out to man his true 
and natural position among created beings. When man, indeed, 
compares himself with the universe, his own insignificance appears 
quite overwhelming; but the argument of design assures him that, 
insignificant as he is, while he investigates and approves of the 
order and harmony around him, he is exerting faculties truly god- 
like — that his reason though limited in degree, must be immortal in 
kind, and thus differ from that of the great Architect of all, only in 
not being infinite. And hence the proud relationship in which man 
justly considers himself to stand with respect to his Maker! hence 
the grand source of that longing after a future state, where his 
knowledge will be consummated, and where he will no longer " see 
through a glass darkly" — notions at once the result and reward of 
his reason, and which raise him far above all other animals. 



BOOK II. 



of meteorology: comprehending a general sketch of the consti- 
tution OF THE GLOBE; AND OF THE DISTRIBUTION AND MUTUAL IN- 
FLUENCE OF THE AGENTS AND ELEMENTS OF CHEMISTRY IN THE 
ECONOMY OF NATURE. 

In the foregoing chapters, we have endeavoured to convey some 
idea of the " limits which the Deity has been pleased to prescribe to 
his own power ;" or in other words, of the properties of the different 
subordinate agents and elements of our globe, and of their mode of 
operation. We come now to consider a little more closely the 
general distribution of these agents and elements ; and the principles 
upon which this distribution is regulated, so as to produce all the 
wonderful results which we see constantly going on around us in 
nature. 

In the present state of the world, as we have already observed, 
the general tendency of its constituent principles seems to be to- 
wards a state of equilibrium or repose. But a very superficial 
examination of those parts of the earth's crust to which we can ob- 
tain access, is sufficient to convince us that this quietude has not 
always existed ; and consequently that the present state of things 
must have had a beginning. In short the phenomena of geology ap- 
pear to show, that our earth in its progress, has undergone, alter- 
nately, periods of comparative quietude like that in which we now 
live ; and periods of derangement and convulsion, in which the pre- 
ceding states of quietude and their consequences have been more or 
less subverted, and a new order of things has been induced. To 
enter further into details regarding these changes, however, would 
be quite foreign to the object of the present volume. It is the busi- 
ness of the Geologist to point out the changes which our earth has 
evidently undergone before it arrived at its present condition ; to 
trace the earth as it were from a state of chaos through all its 
metamorphoses, whether sudden and convulsive, or slow and gra- 
dual; and to show that all these changes have not resulted from 
chance, but from the agency of an intelligent Being operating with 
some ulterior purpose, and according to certain laws, to which he 
had chosen to restrict himself — to demonstrate, in short, that to 
these very convulsions and changes we owe all that boundless va- 
riety of sea and of land, of mountain and plain, of hill and valley : 
all that endless admixture of rocks, of strata and of soils, so essen- 
tial to the existence of the present order of things: without which 
the world would have been a mass of crystals, or one dreary mono- 
tonous void, totally unfitted for the present race of organized beings; 



RELATION OF SEA TO LAND. 97 

and particularly as a residence for man — apparently one great end 
and object of creation. Such is the business of the geologist ; and 
where his duties terminate, those of the Meteorologist may be said 
to begin. To him it belongs more especially to consider the globe 
in its 'present condition of quietude or equilibrium, and the means by 
which this state of equilibrium is maintained : in particular, to point 
out the influences of heat and of light, and of the energies allied to 
them ; to study the laws of the distribution and change of these im- 
portant agents in the production of climate ; to trace, in short, the 
effects of these wonderful principles upon the earth, the ocean, and 
the atmosphere, and all the infinite variety of phenomena dependent 
upon them. 

In so wide and varied a field of inquiry it is not perhaps easy to 
devise a plan that shall be perfectly unexceptionable. For, as there 
is no one subject so entirely isolated, as not to be more or less in- 
fluenced by the rest, we scarcely know which to commence with. 
After a good deal of reflection, we have adopted that arrangement 
which seems to offer the most natural view of these subjects : and 
at the same time appears best calculated to illustrate the design and 
wisdom of the Great Creator. 



CHAPTER I. 

OF THE GENERAL STRUCTURE OF THE EARTH! PARTICULARLY WITH RE- 
FERENCE TO THE DISTRIBUTION OF ITS SURFACE INTO LAND AND 
WATER ; AND WITH RESPECT TO ITS ATMOSPHERE. 

Section I. 
Of the General Relations of the Sea and the Land to each other. 

Our earth may be considered as made up of materials naturally 
existing in the solid, the liquid, and the gaseous state, the absolute 
proportions of which to each other we cannot even conjecture. Of 
the mean density of the whole, however, we can form some esti- 
mate; and philosophers have shown that this density lies between 
five and five and a half, that of water being one. We can also 
form a tolerably precise notion of the relative proportions of the 
surface occupied by the solid and the liquid materials ; and of the 
pressure and height of the atmosphere surrounding the whole. 

With the general geographical distribution of land and ocean, we 
take it for granted that all are more or less acquainted. We shall, 
therefore, confine our remarks chiefly to their relative proportions ; 

9 



98 METEOROLOGY. 

which are such, that nearly three-fourths of the earth's surface may 
be said to be covered with water, while barely one-fourth, of course, 
must be occupied by dry land. Of this dry land, as is well known, 
by far the greater part is confined to the northern hemisphere; 
while in the southern hemisphere, the Pacific ocean exhibits a nearly 
continuous surface of water, greater than the whole dry land of the 
globe put together. According to the estimate of Humboldt, the 
dry land in the two hemispheres is in the ratio of three to one ; be- 
tween the tropics in the two hemispheres as five to four ; and with- 
out the tropics as thirteen to one ; the preponderance being in the 
northern hemisphere. 

The height of the dry land above the general level of the ocean 
is very various ; but its utmost height, as compared with the diame- 
ter of the earth, is quite trifling ; and it has been shown that if the 
whole of the dry land existing were equally distributed over the bot- 
tom of the sea, the quantity of water in the sea is amply sufficient 
to cover it entirely. Hence " dry land can be only considered as so 
much of the rough surface of our globe as may happen for the time 
to be above the level of the waters; beneath which it may again 
disappear, as it has done at different previous periods."* 

The solid portions of our earth are all made up of various com- 
binations of the elementary principles described in a former chapter. 
The relative situations these principles occupy in the earth's struc- 
ture ; the endless proportions in which they exist ; and all the infinite 
diversity of their properties, it is the business of the geologist and of 
the mineralogist to inquire into and explain : the observations, there- 
fore, which we have to make on the present part of our subject, 
will be chiefly confined to the waters of the ocean, and to the 
atmosphere. 

Section II. 

Of the Ocean. 

The waters of the ocean are not pure, but contain, as is well- 
known, a variety of saline matters in solution. Indeed, when we 
reflect upon the immense relative extent and general circumstances 
of the ocean, we may naturally suppose that its waters will contain 
more or less of every existing soluble principle. By far the most 
abundant principle, however, in sea-water is common salt : which 
may be said to constitute, in general, nearly two-thirds of the whole 
saline matter present. The saline matter fluctuates between three 
or four percent; and the specific gravity of the water varies, ac- 
cording to the proportion of the saline ingredients, from about 1026 
to 1030; pure water being supposed to be 1000. The late IV. 

• De la Beche'fl Geological Manual, p. ~. 



OF THE OCEAN. 99 

Marcet, some years ago, made some interesting experiments on this 
subject, and the following are the general conclusios which he 
drew from them : — 

1. That the southern ocean contains more salt than the 
northern ocean, in the ratio of 1.02919 to 1.02757. 

2. That the mean specific gravity of sea-water, near the 
equator, is 1.02777 ; or intermediate between that of the north- 
ern and that of the southern hemispheres. 

3. That there is no notable difference in sea-water under 
different meridians. 

4. That there is no satisfactory evidence that the sea at great 
depths is more salt than at the surface. 

5. That the sea, in general, contains more salt where it is 
deepest and most remote from land ; and that its saltness is al- 
ways diminished in the vicinity of large masses of ice. 

6. That small inland seas, though communicating with the 
ocean, are much less salt than the ocean. 

7. That the Mediterranean contains rather larger propor- 
tions of salt than the ocean.* 

The saltness of the sea, therefore, is considerably influenced, at 
least at its surface, by the neighbourhood of large rivers, and by 
permanent accumulations of ice ; and in this way the inferior salt- 
ness of small inland seas, particularly in high latitudes, may in gene- 
ral be explained, as most of these inland seas are supplied with com- 
paratively large quantities of fresh water from the rivers flowing 
into them. On the other hand, the superior saltness of the Medi- 
terranean has been ascribed to the immense evaporation from its 
surface ; the consequence principally of its being situated in a warmer 
climate. 

The saline contents of the ocean are of immense importance in 
the economy of nature. Such indeed is their importance, that it is 
doubtful whether the present order of things could be maintained 
without them. The effects of these saline matters will be more 
particularly pointed out hereafter. In this place we shall only re- 
mark, that by lowering the freezing point of water ; and by dimi- 
nishing its tendency to give off vapour, they perform the most bene- 
ficial offices. Another valuable purpose which they serve may be 
alluded to here, viz. the greater power of buoyancy which they 
communicate to water ; by means of which the waters of the 
ocean are better fitted for the purposes of navigation. Nor are 
these the only uses of the saline matters ; for there is reason to be- 
lieve that they contribute in no small degree to the stability of the 
water ; and that an ocean of fresh water would speedily undergo 
changes that would probably render it incompatible with animal 

* Philos. Trans. 1819. 



100 METEOROLOGY. 

life ; such an ocean perhaps would even suffer decomposition, that 
might seriously interfere with the other arrangements of nature. 

Lastly, who will venture to assert that the distribution of sea and 
of land, as they now exist, though apparently so disproportionate, 
is not actually necessary as the world is at present constituted? 
What would be the result, for instance, if the Pacific or the Atlantic 
oceans were to be converted into continents'? Would not the cli- 
mates of the existing continents, as formerly observed, be completely 
changed by such an addition to the land, and the whole of their fer- 
tile regions be reduced to arid deserts ? Now, this distribution of 
sea and of land, so wonderfully adapted as it appears to be to the pre- 
sent state of things, depends of course in a great measure upon the 
absolute quantity of water in the world. While on the other hand, 
the relative gravity of water, as compared with that of the earth, 
keeps the ocean within its destined limits, notwithstanding its inces- 
sant motion. Thus Laplace has shown that the world would have 
been constantly liable to have been deluged from the slightest causes, 
had the mean density of the ocean exceeded that of the earth ! 
Hence the adjustment of the quantity of w 7 ater and of its density, 
as compared with that, of the earth, afford some of the most marked 
and beautiful instances of design. 

Section III. 

Of the Atmosphere. 

That immense body of gaseous matters surrounding our earth, 
and usually known under the name of the Atmosphere, is essen- 
tially composed, as we formerly stated, of two principles, oxygen 
and azote, in the proportion nearly of one part of oxygen and four 
parts of azote. Besides these two gases, the atmosphere also con- 
tains a small and perhaps a variable quantity of carbonic acid gas. 
amounting upon an average to about one part in a thousand of the 
whole; and of water in a state of vapour, likewise a variable 
quantity, (as will be shown hereafter,) but usually fluctuating be- 
tween one, and one and a half per cent. In addition to those, there 
are, probably also other matters constantly present in the atm 
sphere; for as the sea contains a little of everything that is soluble in 
water, so the atmosphere may be conceived to contain a little of 
everything that is capable of assuming the gaseous form. 

The atmosphere exerts a pressure or weight upon all parts of the 
earth's surface, on an average equal to about fifteen pounds upon a 
square inch; or in other words, equal in weight to a column of 
mercury one inch square and thirty inches high. The well-known 
instrument the common Barometer or Weather-glass^ consists of 
nothing more than such a column of mercury, poised or pressed 
upwards into a vacuum, by the weight of the atmosphere. With the 



OF THE ATMOSPHERE. 101 

changes constantly taking place in the height of such a column, 
every body is familiar, and we shall have occasion to recur to 
them hereafter ; at present it is only requisite to observe, that these 
changes are much less remarkable in tropical than in temperate 
climates. Thus, between the tropics the barometer usually varies 
only about one-third of an inch ; while in temperate climates, the 
changes amount to upwards of one-tenth of the whole height. 

The pressure of the atmosphere decreases as we ascend above 
the earth's surface ; and for equal ascents, this decrease of density 
is in what is called geometrical progression. Thus, at three miles 
in height, the density of the atmosphere is only one-half of what it 
is at the surface of the earth, or equal to a column of mercury 
fifteen inches in height ; at six miles, the barometer would stand at 
one-fourth of its usual height, or seven and a half inches ; at nine 
miles of elevation, at three inches and three quarters ; and, at fifteen 
miles, nearly at one inch only. Hence by far the greater portion of 
the atmosphere is always within fifteen or twenty miles of the 
earth's surface ; though from various circumstances it has been in- 
ferred to extend from forty to forty-five miles in height. This 
height however, must be different in different latitudes ; for the ro- 
tation of the earth upon its axis, and the greater and more direct 
influence of the solar heat upon the earth's equatorial regions, will 
necessarily cause the atmosphere to be higher there than in the 
polar regions ; at the poles, the atmosphere must be lower than over 
any other part of the earth's surface. These are most important 
circumstances in the economy of nature, as we shall see hereafter. 

Much difference of opinion has existed among philosophers as to 
the mode in which the various principles entering into the compos- 
tion of atmospheric air are associated; some maintaining that these 
principles exist simply in a state of mixture: others considering 
them as chemically united. We formerly stated that all gaseous 
bodies, when they combine with one another, combine with reference 
to their volumes ; that is to say, that one volume of one gas always 
combines with one, two, or more similar volumes of the same, or of 
another gas, and not with any intermediate fractional part. Now, 
as atmospheric air is composed essentially of one volume of oxygen 
and four volumes of azote, it is evident, whether its elements be in 
actual union or not, that it is at least constituted upon strictly chemi- 
cal 'principles; whence it follows, that the composition of the at- 
mosphere has not been the result of accident. In this point of view, 
therefore, atmospheric air may be considered to be as much a 
chemical compound as water, or any other similar body ; and in- 
stead of viewing the atmosphere, according to a prevalent notion, 
as a mere accidental and heterogeneous appendage connected with 
the denser matters by no apparent tie, we may fairly rank the at- 
mosphere among the constituent principles of our globe, and as 
forming a symmetrica] part of the great harmonious whole. 

9* 



102 METEOROLOGY. 

But although atmospheric air has been thus originally constituted 
upon chemical principles, and probably owes to this circumstance, 
in no small degree, its stability ; yet the mode in which its con- 
stituent elements are associated, is very different from that in which 
the elements of compounds in general are associated. Indeed the 
constituent elements of atmospheric air do not appear to be com- 
bined at all ; but to be only mixed, or simply diffused through each 
other, in the same manner that the minute portions of carbonic acid 
gas and of vapour are known to be diffused through the whole atmo- 
sphere ; that is to say, according to the laws of the general diffusion 
of gaseous bodies which we endeavoured to explain in a former 
chapter. To this explanation we must refer the reader for details. 
We shall merely observe here, that the fundamental principle of this 
explanation consists in the assumption, that the molecules of all bodies 
in the gaseous state are self-repulsive (or repulsive of one another., 
in preference to others,) for the same reason that in the solid state 
they are self-attractive (or attract one another, in preference to 
others). When different gaseous bodies therefore, are mixed to- 
gether, they will not assume a position according to their specific 
gravities, as they might otherwise be expected to do ; but the mole- 
cules of each gas will be equally diffused throughout the whole 
space occupied by the mixture. Hence, one direct and most im- 
portant effect of the mixed constitution of the atmosphere, is its 
nearly uniform composition, at least within the limits attainable by 
man — a fact that has been confirmed by innumerable analyses of 
the air, made in all parts of the world, both at its surface and at 
the greatest heights hitherto reached. Moreover, this constitution 
of the atmosphere not originally produced such uniformity of com- 
position, but it is the cause constantly operating to preserve that uni- 
formity — the grand conservative principle, as it were, preventing any 
unequal distribution of the constituent elements of the atmosphere, 
which would speedily prove fatal to organic life ! Were the gase- 
ous principles composing the atmosphere in ever so slight a state of 
union, they could not readily diffuse themselves through each other; 
and partial accumulations of one or other of them would be con- 
stantly taking place; but as the atmosphere is at present constituted, 
if a little more oxygen be consumed in onp spot than another, in- 
stantly the deficiency is supplied from the neighbourhood by diffu- 
sion, and the equilibrium is scarcely affected in a sensible degree. 
Another curious result of this independent condition of the gaseous 
principles of the atmosphere is, that of the whole pressure exerted, 
each principle exerts its own force according to its quantity. Thus, 
of the thirty inches of mercury supported by the whole atmospheric 
pressure, the azote sustains 23-^ inches, and the oxygen (\\* inches; 
while the aqueous vapour sustains only T 4 /g- inch, and the carbonic 
acid still less, or only-^ inch. Hence' it is evident that the fluctua- 
tions in the height of the barometer, amounting to nearly three inches 



. OF THE ATMOSPHERE. 103 

in our latitude, cannot depend altogether upon the quantity of aque- 
ous vapour in the atmosphere ; for if the whole of this vapour were 
annihilated, it would scarcely produce a difference in height of half 
an inch. Attention is now drawn to this fact for purposes that will 
appear in a subsequent chapter. 

Lastly, had the absolute quantity, or the relative gravity, of the 
atmosphere been materially different from what they are, the pre- 
sent order of things could not have existed. Hence, the same 
striking evidences of wise adjustments are displayed in these ar- 
rangements of the atmosphere, as in those formerly shown to exist 
with respect to the quantity and gravity of the ocean. 

Before we close the present chapter, let us reflect for a moment 
upon the great arrangements we have been considering. 

Why has the surface of this earth been divided into land and 
sea? Why have the land and sea been so adjusted to each other, 
that their condition and properties hardly admit of change without 
destruction to the whole fabric ? Why has their present stability 
been so wonderfully secured ! Again, with respect to the atmo- 
sphere; why has there been any atmosphere thrown around this 
globe ? and why such manifest provisions to secure its ubiquity and 
unvarying constitution 1 

Viewed alone and without reference to organized beings, all these 
things appear without an object. This globe might have revolved 
about the central luminary — might have occupied its point in the 
universe without any " gathering together of the waters," without 
any circumambient air. But the scheme of the great Creator ex- 
tended beyond the mere adaptation of inanimate matter. "Before 
its foundations were laid," He had destined this earth to teem with 
life, and throughout has displayed his original design of rendering it 
a fit habitation for living beings. For this purpose and acting at 
the same time, in strict conformity to those laws, by which He had 
chosen to limit himself, He has, by means of successive convulsions 
and changes, so contrived to mix and blend the different elements* 
and finally so to arrange the dryland apart from the sea; that, 
taken as a whole, and with reference to the present order of things, 
their relative proportions will scarcely admit of material change. 
While to crown his works, and as it w T ere, the more strongly to 
evince his design, and his wisdom, He has surrounded the whole 
w r ith an atmosphere, to preserve the homogeneity of which, its prin- 
ciples have been so associated, as to constitute an exception to his 
usual operations, and even to the general laws of nature 1 



104 



CHAPTER II. 

OF HEAT AND LIGHT THE MODES OF ESTIMATING THEIR DEGREE, AND 

THE WAYS IN WHICH THEY ARE PROPAGATED. OF THE GENERAL 

TEMPERATURE OF THE CELESTIAL REGIONS, AND OF THE EARTH IN- 
DEPENDENTLY OF THE SUN. 

Section I. 
Of Heat and. Light, and the Modes of estimating their Degree. 

Our sensations are a very imperfect and uncertain measure of 
temperature, and when we wish to speak with precision on that sub- 
ject, it becomes necessary to have recourse to other means of com- 
parison. For the sake of the general reader, we shall, therefore, in 
the first place, briefly describe the principles of the construction of 
the Thermometer, the instrument for measuring heat. 

All bodies, as we have shown in a former chapter, become more 
or less expanded when they undergo an increase of temperature. 
Hence the relative degrees of expansion of a body may be em- 
ployed as a sort of measure of the degree of heat ; and most of 
the thermometers employed, act upon this principle. Thus the com- 
mon thermometer, as is well known, consists of a portion of some 
fluid, generally of mercury, enclosed in a small glass ball furnished 
with a hollow stem, the narrow bore of which communicates with 
the general cavity of the ball. We shall suppose the quantity of the 
mercury, and the size of the ball, to be so adjusted to each other, 
that when the instrument is placed in ice on the one hand, and in 
boiling water on the other, the whole expansion of the mercury be- 
tween these two fixed points, shall fall within the range of the stem 
or tube. The points at which the mercury stands^n the tube, at the 
freezing and boiling temperatures are to be accurately noted ; and 
the intermediate space upon the scale attached to the tube, is to be 
divided into 180 equal parts or degrees; the freezing point is to be 
marked 32°, and of course, the boiling point 180° above, or 212°. 
Such is Fahrenheit's scale, the one employed in this country, and to 
which the numbers hereafter mentioned refer. In other countries 
different scales are made use of; and in France particularly, what 
is termed the centigrade thermometer is generally adopted. In this 
thermometer the freezing point is marked 0° and the boiling point 
J 00. In other parts of the continent Reaumur's scale is much used. 
\n lvoaumur's the freezing point, as in the Centigrade, is 0°, hut the 
bolting point is only 80°. These different graduations are easily 
Convertible, hut it is much to he regretted that the}- exist, as they 
cause considerable trouble ami confusion. 



PROPAGATION OF HEAT AND LIGHT. 105 

The instrument employed for measuring the intensity of light is 
termed a Photometer ; of such an instrument various forms have 
been proposed, but at present they are all very imperfect. 

Section II. 
Of the Propagation of Heat and Light. 

The modes in which heat and light are propagated from one 
body to another, and through the same body, have been already ex- 
plained, and we need not again enter into details : a brief recital 
here, however, of the modes in which heat and light are propagated, 
may not be unacceptable to the general reader. 

Heat passes from the sun to the earth by radiation ; and again, 
by the same process, it is freely sent off from the surface of the 
earth into the atmosphere. Below the surface of the earth, heat is 
propagated in all directions through the solid matter, by what is 
called conduction. A third mode in which this, important agent is 
extensively propagated in nature, is by the means we have termed 
convection, or the carrying process. Convection is confined, of 
course, to fluids, as water and air. A portion of water or of air 
being heated above, or cooled below the surrounding portions, ex- 
pands or contracts in magnitude, and thus becoming specifically 
lighter or heavier, rises or sinks accordingly ; carrying with it, the 
newly acquired temperature, whatever that temperature may be. 

Light, at present, is only known to be propagated by radiation. 

By bearing in mind these modes of the propagation of heat and 
light, the general reader will find no difficulty in understanding what 
follows. 

Section III. 
Of the Temperature of the Celestial Regions. 

From the close and intimate relations between heat and light, and 
from their almost invariable association as they exist around us, h 
seems not very unreasonable to conclude that these agencies are 
generally associated in nature ; and that wherever one is present* 
there the other must be present also. If this be really the case, the 
innumerable fixed stars, considered to be so many suns, must be 
supposed capable of diffusing heat as well as light throughout the 
celestial regions ; and consequently there must be a certain degree 
of temperature common to the whole. For this reason, and for 
others that might be mentioned, philosophers have not only inferred 
the existence of such a common temperature existing throughout 
the celestial regions, independently of our sun ; but have even 



106 METEOROLOGY. 

attempted to determine its degree. Moreover, it is singular that all 
the different modes which have been employed to estimate this tem- 
perature, concur in showing that it does not differ much from — 58° of 
Fahrenheit's scale; that is to say, about 90° below the freezing point 
of water ; a degree of cold " not greatly inferior to that at which 
quicksilver becomes solid, and much superior to some degrees of 
cold which have been produced artificially."* If such a common 
temperature really exists throughout space, or at least in our plane- 
tary system, it must have no inconsiderable influence upon the tem- 
perature of the planets generally; and with respect to our own 
globe in particular, such a common temperature must operate by 
diminishing the intensity of the cold around the poles. 

Section IV. 
Of the Temperature of the Interior of the Earth, 

The attention of philosophers has, for some years past, been a 
good deal directed to the internal temperature of the earth, at great 
depths, beyond the influence of the sun or of any other external 
cause. From the earliest times some vague notions of a central 
heat seem to have existed among mankind ; doubtless, arising from 
their attention being forcibly drawn to the phenomena of volcanoes 
and hot springs ; but it is not till a comparatively late period that 
the subject has been carefully investigated. It would be quite 
foreign to our design to enter here into details upon this point; we 
shall therefore merely state, that the arguments in favour of the 
probability of a central heat are — " first, the experiments made in 
mines, which, notwithstanding their liability to error from various 
sources, still seem to show, particularly those made in the rock 
itself, an increase of temperature from the surface downwards ; — 
secondly, the existence of thermal springs, which are not only abun- 
dant among active and extinct volcanoes, but also among all va- 
rieties of rocks in various parts of the world; — thirdly, the existence 
of volcanoes themselves, which are distributed over the globe, and 
present such a general resemblance to each other that they may be 
considered as produced by a common cause, and that cause, proba- 
bly, deep-seated ; — and lastly, the terrestrial temperature at com- 
paratively small depths, which does not coincide with the mean 
temperature of the air above it."f 

Such is an abstract of the principal arguments which have been 
brought forward in support of the opinion, that within our earth. 
even at the present time, there exists a central heat of great inten- 

• Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy; p. 157. By Sir J. r. W, 

Hcrscliell. 

f De la Heche's Geological Manual, p, 2 1, new cul. 



HEAT OF THE INTERIOR OF THE EARTH. 107 

sity. As corroborative of the same views, may be mentioned the 
evidence derived from the characters of the fossil remains both of 
plants and of animals, found in the colder regions of the world ; 
which characters are such as to prove beyond a doubt, that these 
plants and animals must have existed in a climate much hotter than 
that in which their remains are found, and indeed, of equal, if not of 
superior, heat to that of the tropical portions of our earth at this 
time. Hence it has been inferred, that the temperature of our earth, 
formerly much above what it is now, has been gradually dissipated 
into the surrounding planetary regions, and thus helped to increase 
the general temperature, above stated, as supposed to exist through- 
out space. Moreover, the same distinguished philosopher,* to whom 
we are principally indebted for these observations, has attempted to 
show that the earth has nearly reached its limit of cooling, particu- 
larly near the surface. Near the surface the temperature would 
necessarily decrease much more rapidly than in the interior ; where, 
in a globe of the earth's magnitude, the temperature might be sup- 
posed to remain nearly unchanged for a very great length of time. 
He has aso attempted to show that the temperature of the surface 
is still liable to be influenced, by the gradual escape of heat from the 
interior which even yet seems to be constantly going on ; and that 
the temperature of the surface is thus somewhat higher than it 
would be if such a central heat did not exist ; or than if the tempe- 
rature of the surface of the earth depended only upon the action of 
the sun. And this brings us to the point at which our subject may 
be said properly to begin, viz. the consideration of the present state 
of the earth's temperature, as liable to be influenced by the presence 
or absence of the sun, the great source of heat and of life to our 
system. 

Before proceeding, we may remark, that the details of the subject 
we have now concluded, fall entirely within the province of the 
geologist. To him it belongs, as we have already said, not only to 
trace the wonderful changes which our globe has undergone in ar- 
riving at its present condition, but to point out the beautiful adapta- 
tions of organic life and structure to the existing circumstances of 
its various epochs. Considered in this point of view, geology is a 
subject of the highest interest and importance ; and, to use the words 
of an eminent Professor, with which we shall finish this chapter, 
" lends a great and unexpected aid to the doctrine of final causes ; 
for it has not merely added to the cumulative argument, by the sup- 
ply of new and striking instances of mechanical structure adjusted 
to a purpose, and that purpose accomplished ; but it has also proved 
that the same pervading active principle manifesting its power in 
our times, has also manifested its power in times long anterior to 
the records of our existence. 

* Baron Fourier. 



108 METEOROLOGY. 

" But, after all," continues our author, " some men, seeing nothing 
but uniformity and continuity in the works of nature, have still con- 
tended (with, what I think, a mistaken zeal for the honour of sacred 
truth) that the argument from final causes proves nothing more than 
a quiescent intelligence. I feel not the force of this objection. In 
geology, however, we can meet it by another direct argument ; for 
we not only find in our formations organs mechanically constructed, 
but at different epochs in the history of the earth we have great 
changes of external conditions, and corresponding changes of 
organic structure ; and all this without the shadow of a proof that 
one system of things graduates into, or is the necessary and effi- 
cient cause, of the other. Yet in all these instances of change, the 
organs, as far as we can comprehend their use, are exactly those 
which were best suited to the functions of the being. Hence, we not 
only show intelligence contriving means adapted to an end, but at 
successive times and periods contriving a change of mechanism 
adapted to a change in external conditions. If this be not the ope- 
ration of a prospective and active intelligence, where are we to'look 
for it ?"* 



CHAPTER III. 

OF THE TEMPERATURE OF THE EARTH AT ITS SURFACE, AS DEPENDENT 

ON THE SUN. 

The general temperature of the earth is doubtless regulated by its 
situation in the universe, and more especially by its position with 
respect to the sun. To this position, as formerly observed, the pro- 
perties of its constituent principles have, most obviously, been all 
adapted with consummate wisdom ; so that, under the circumstances 
in which they are placed, some are solid, some liquid, others gaseous, 
according to the purposes they are intended to fulfil in nature. 

But the heat and light derived from the sun are very unequally 
distributed over the surface of the earth; and every one is familiar 
with the fact, that as we recede from the equator towards the north 
or south, the temperature of the earth's surface gradually diminishes 
till we arrive at the polar regions. 

Such is the general fact. But the circumstances which conspire 
to interfere with this gradual distribution of temperature are so nu- 
merous and so influential, that the actual temperature of a plan' can 
}n\ learnt only by observation. Among the circumstances thus more 

• \ddress delivered to tin- Geological Society of London] by the late President, 

Professor Sedgwick, 1831. 



MEAN TEMPERATURE. 109 

especially affecting the distribution of temperature, may be men- 
tioned the nature of the surface, whether water or land, — and the 
situation, whether at a greater or at a less height above the level of 
the ocean. To these may be added the particular configuration 
and geographical relations of places : such as their aspect to the north 
or south; their being sheltered or exposed; the composition and 
nature of the soil, such as its colour and state of aggregation, on 
which depend its powers of absorbing and of radiating heat and 
light, and of retaining or of parting with humidity, &c. ; also the 
proximity or absence of seas; the predominancy of certain winds ; 
the frequency of clouds, fogs, &c. These, -and innumerable other 
circumstances, many of which will be pointed out in subsequent 
chapters, contribute to influence the temperatures of particular 
places, and to render them, in fact, as varied as the places them- 
selves. 

Nor is difference of place the only cause of vicissitude of tempe- 
rature ; every one knows that at the same place the temperature is 
in a constant state of change. Hence before we can obtain correct 
notions of the actual temperature of any given place or period, cer- 
tain expedients are necessary which w T e have in the first place to 
consider. 



Section I. 

Of Mean Temperature. 

If, on any given day, we observe the temperature at the earth's 
surface, at the commencement of every one of the twenty-four hours, 
we shall find, as before observed, that at each hour the temperature 
is different; and we naturally inquire which of all these tempera- 
tures is to be chosen in preference, as the one characteristic of the 
day and place 1 The answer to this question obviously is ; that tem- 
perature, whatever it may be, which is equidistant from the extremes, 
or, as it is usually termed, the mean temperature of the whole. Now 
this mean temperature may be obtained, nearly by adding all the 
results together, and dividing the sum by the number of observations; 
thus we arrive at the mean temperature of the day, by adding 
together the temperatures observed at different hours of the day, 
and dividing the sum by the number of temperatures. In the like 
manner by adding together the mean temperatures of every day of 
a week, or of a month, and dividing the sum by the number of days, 
we obtain the mean temperature of the weak or month ; and so on, 
by similarly treating the mean temperature of the months, or of any 
number of years, we obtain the mean temperature of the year, at a 
given place: and it is to be observed that the greater the number of 
observations the more accurate will be the mean result. 

10 



110 METEOROLOGY. 

Lastly, it remains to state that the temperature always understood 
by the Meteorologist (except otherwise expressed) is that of the air 
near the surface of the earth, as indicated by a thermometer effec- 
tually protected from radiation and foreign influence of every kind. 
The temperature as indicated by a thermometer fully exposed to 
solar radiation, and which in its turn is allowed to radiate freely in 
the sun's absence, is altogether a different thing ; and may be ima- 
gined to coincide very nearly with the actual temperature of the 
earth's surface, when similarly exposed. The fluctuations of tem- 
perature indicated under these circumstances are much greater than 
those of the air above noticed, though it is probable that the mean 
of the whole of such observations, if this mean could be accurately 
obtained, would differ little from the mean of those of the air. 



Section II. 

Of the actual Distribution of Temperature over the Globe. Of Iso- 
thermal Lines, SfC. Climate. 

The reader is supposed to be acquainted with the principles of 
the common division of the surface of the globe into five zones or 
portions, usually denominated the torrid, the two frigid, and the two 
intermediate temperate zones; and that generally speaking the poles 
and the equator present the extremes of temperature upon the earth's 
surface. Now, in considering the general distribution of tempera- 
ture over the globe, the extreme temperatures naturally claim our 
attention in an especial manner: we shall, therefore, in the first 
place, proceed to consider the temperature of the polar and of the 
equatorial regions. 

Of the Temperature of the Poles and of the polar Regions. — The 
probable mean temperature of the poles has always been an inte- 
resting subject of meteorological inquiry. It must be confessed, 
however, that after all that of late years has been done by our en- 
terprising countrymen, much is yet necessary to enable us to arrive 
at satisfactory conclusions. Thus it has been shown that in attempt- 
ing to calculate the temperature of the North Pole, we shall obtain 
very different results by employing the temperature occurring in the 
old world, and that observed in the new world ; the temperature of 
the old world indicating the temperature of the pole to be about 10°; 
while the temperature of the new world indicates it to be consider- 
ably below Zero. Hence it has been inferred, that there arc two 
points or polos of greatest cold situated in about the latitude of SO 
north, and in longitudes 95° east, and 100° west; and consequently 
that the geographical polo of the globe is not the coldest point o( 
the Arctic hemisphere. Whether this deduction be well founded or 
not must be decided by future observation. At present the actual 



TEMPERATURE OF THE EQUATOR. Ill 

temperature of the polar regions cannot be considered as deter- 
mined. 

Although we are thus unable to state with certainty the tempera- 
ture of the Polar regions, it may nevertheless be deemed an object 
of curiosity to know the lowest temperatures that have been noticed. 
Perhaps the lowest authentic observations of temperature we pos- 
sess are those by Captain Parry at Melville Island. Here the ther- 
mometer in the ship was often observed as low as — 50° ; and at a 
distance from the ship even as low as 55° under Zero. We believe 
still lower temperatures than these are on record, but probably they 
are not to be relied on. The greatest degree of cold hitherto pro- 
duced artificially has been 91° under Zero. 

Of the mean annual Temperature of the Equator. The mean 
annual temperature of the equatorial, like that of the polar regions, 
is a meteorological problem of considerable interest. Humboldt, 
from a very extensive generalization, fixed the mean equatorial 
temperature at 81^°; and the same temperature has been adopted 
by others. Attempts, however, have been recently made to show 
that this temperature is 3° or 4° below the truth ; but Humboldt, in 
reply still maintains his former opinion. Since at the equator, only 
about one-sixth of the whole circumference of the globe is dry land, 
the general equatorial temperature, as actually found to exist, is per- 
haps lower than upon theoretical principles it ought to be ; and cer- 
tainly much below what it ought to be, as deduced from observa- 
tions made on the continent in the neighbourhood of the equator. 
Thus the mean temperature of Pondicherry, in latitude 11° 55' 
north is at least 85° ; and if from this temperature that of the equa- 
tor were deduced according to the common principles, the deduc- 
tion would of course be much above the truth. The fact is, as in 
the case of the polar regions, we do not possess the requisite data 
for determining the equatorial temperature in a perfectly satisfactory 
manner. 

As in speaking of the polar regions, we noticed the lowest degree 
of temperature which had been observed, perhaps while speaking 
of the equatoral regions it may not be deemed irrelevant to notice 
the highest temperature. Observations, however, of this kind, being 
principally founded on the incidental notices of travellers, are not, 
in general, much to be relied on; or are to be considered only as 
approximations. Thus the thermometer has been recorded at 
Benares to stand at 110°, 113°, and even 118°. At Sierra Leone, it 
has been observed, when placed on the ground to indicate a tempera- 
ture of 138°. Humboldt also gives many instances of the tempera- 
ture of the surface of the earth, amounting to 118°, 120°, and 129°; 
and on one occasion he found the temperature of a loose and coarse 
granitic sand to amount to upwards of 140°, the thermometer in the 
sun at the time only indicating a temperature of about 97°. 



112 METEOROLOGY. 

Of the Temperature of the intermediate Regions of the Globe. 
Of Isothermal Lines, 4*c. With respect to the temperatures of 
those parts of the earth between the poles and the equator, it may 
be remarked, that, except for reference only, the old division, before 
mentioned, of the earth's surface into zones is now almost entirely 
superseded by the more precise and natural arrangement, termed 
the Isothermal arrangement. According to this arrangement, all the 
places upon the globe having the same annual mean temperature are 
classed together; and lines drawn upon a map through such a series 
of places, have been termed Isothermal lines, or lines of equal tem- 
perature. As might be expected from what has been already stated, 
the courses of these lines are by no means regular. Thus, suppose 
two travellers set out, the one from London and the other from 
Paris, and each visit all the places in the northern hemisphere in 
which the mean annual temperatures are the same as in these two 
cities. It will be found that the lines of their routes, or the isother- 
mal lines of these two cities, will not only not follow the parallels of 
their latitude, but that they will not be parallel to each other ; and 
the same may be said to be the case with any other two places 
upon the globe. Hence, as the isothermal lines are as numerous as 
the places, and as diversified as numerous, geographers have grouped 
them into bands or zones. Thus Humboldt (to whom we owe most 
that has been done on this subject) has divided the northern hemi- 
sphere into the following six isothermal bands or zones, viz. : 

1. The zone of mean annual temperature ranging- from 32° to 41°. 

2. - - - - from 41° to 50°. 

3. from 50° to 59°. . 

4. from 59° to 68°. 

5. from 68° to 77°. 

6. .... from 77° upwards. 

The tables given in the appendix contain a general view of Hum- 
boldt's results. We shall content ourselves with briefly pointing 
out the approximate course of the most interesting of these lines, 
viz, the Isothermal line of 32°. 

If we begin to trace this important line from the eastern parts o{ 
Siberia in longitude 130° east y we shall find that in this meridian it 
commences nearly in the latitude of 59° north; whence it makes a 
gradual bend northwards, and crosses the parallel of CO , nearly in 
longitude 90°. From this point it still advances to the northward, 
and crossing the arctic circle in longitude 45° east, arrives at its most 
northern extremity in about latitude 67j°, longitude 10° east. From 
this its most northerly limit our line takes a gradual swoop towards 
the south, recrosses the arctic circle in longitude 15° west, and (Kiss- 
ing through the north-west of Iceland, divides the parallel of 60° in 
longitude l*i" west. From this spot it proceeds southwards to the 
latitude of 54°, a little to the north of Table Bay, in Labrador; 



ISOTHERMAL LINES. 113 

gradually declining in its course till it arrives at longitude 100° west, 
in the central parts of the new continent. Hence the Isothermal 
line of 32°, ranges through a space of 14° or 15° of latitude ; while its 
wesiern extremity, in the central parts of America, is 5° or 6° nearer 
the equator than its eastern extremity in Siberia — a circumstance 
strikingly illustrative of the greater cold of the new continent in the 
same parallel of latitude. The most remarkable circumstance con- 
nected with them is, that as they approach the equator they gra- 
dually become less convex towards the north, so that the Isothermal 
line of 77° differs but little from a straight line, coincident with the 
tropic of cancer. 

In the arrangement above described the mean temperatures of the 
whole year are supposed to be classed together ; but it is obvious 
that the same principle may be applied to any portion of the year, 
as the extreme winter and summer temperatures. Such classifica- 
tions are often, as we shall presently see, of great importance in 
enabling us to estimate the characters of a particular country. 
Thus, lines drawn through places having the same summer and the 
same winter temperatures, are denominated Isotheral and Isocheimal 
lines ; while lines drawn through places having other common tem- 
peratures, receive other appropriate names. 

After these general remarks, we proceed to give a summary 
sketch of the actual distribution of temperature over the northern 
hemisphere, which we shall subjoin in the words of Humboldt. 

" The whole of Europe," says this distinguished philosopher, 
" compared with the eastern parts of America and Asia has an in- 
sular climate ; and upon the same Isothermal line the summers be- 
come warmer and the winters colder, as we advance from the 
meridian of Mont Blanc towards the east or the west. Europe 
may be considered as the western prolongation of the old conti- 
nent ; and the western parts of all continents are not only warmer 
at equal latitudes than the eastern parts ; but even in the zones of 
equal annual temperature, the winters are more rigorous, and the 
summers hotter on the eastern coasts than on the western coasts of 
the two continents. The northern part of China, like the Atlantic 
region of the United States, exhibits seasons strongly contrasted ; 
while the coasts of New California and the embouchure of the Co- 
lumbia have winters and summers almost equally temperate. The 
meteorological constitution of those countries in the north-west re- 
sembles that of Europe as far as 50° or 52° of latitude. In com- 
paring the two systems of climates, the concave and the convex 
summits of the same Isothermal lines, we find at New York the 
summer of Rome and the winter of Copenhagen ; at Quebec, the 
summer of Paris and the winter of St. Petersburgh. At Pekin, 
also, where the mean temperature of the year is that of the coasts 
of Brittany, the scorching heats of summer are greater than at 
Cairo, and the winters are as rigorous as at Upsal. So also the 

10* 



114 METEOROLOGY. 

same summer temperature prevails at Moscow, in the centre of Rus- 
sia, as towards the mouths of the Loire, notwithstanding a diffe- 
rence of 11° of latitude; a fact that strikingly illustrates the effects 
of the earth's radiation on a vast continent deprived of mountains. 
This analogy between the eastern coasts of Asia and America 
sufficiently proves," continues Humboldt, " that the inequalities of 
the seasons depend on the prolongation and enlargement of conti- 
nents towards the pole; on the size of seas in relation to their 
coasts ; and on the frequency of the north-west winds, and not on 
the proximity of some plateau or elevation of the adjacent lands. 
The great table lands of Asia do not stretch beyond 52° of latitude; 
and in the interior of the new continent, all the immense basin 
bounded by the Alleghany range, and the rocky mountains, is not 
more than from 656 to 920 feet above the level of the ocean." 

The following remarks apply to the temperature of the southern 
hemisphere. 

The general temperatures of the northern and of the southern 
hemispheres are understood to differ very considerably. This dif- 
ference, however, does not depend upon any material difference in 
the proportion of heat and light derived from the sun, as will be 
presently shown ; but on the very unequal distribution of sea and of 
land in the two hemispheres. The small quantity of land in the 
southern hemisphere contributes not only to equalize the seasons, 
but also to diminish the annual temperature of that part of the globe ; 
and hence the polar ice in the southern hemisphere advances more 
towards the equator than in the northern hemisphere, particularly 
where the Antarctic Ocean is free from land. 

Humboldt has shown, that near the equator, and indeed so far 
south as 40° or 50°, the correspondent Isothermal lines are in both 
hemispheres almost equally distant from the poles; and that, in con- 
sidering only the transatlantic climate between 70° and 80° of west 
longitude, the mean temperatures of the year, under corresponding 
geographic parallels, are even greater in the southern than in the 
northern hemisphere. It is the division of heat, therefore, between 
the different seasons of the year, rather than the absolute amount of 
heat, during the whole year, that gives a particular character to 
southern climates, and approximates them generally to the charaetcr 
of insular climates. Thus, in the southern hemisphere, and on the 
Isothermal lines 46.4° and 50° we find summers which, in our hemi- 
sphere, belong only to the Isothermal lines of 35.6° and 40°. The 
mean temperature is not precisely known beyond 51° of south lati- 
tude; yet there is no reason to infer that the Isothermal line of 82° 
is much further from the south pole, than in the opposite hemisphere, 
the similar line is from the north pole; and some circumstances at 
first sight appear to show that the Isothermal line o( 88* is even 
nearer to the south pole than it is to the north pole: though these 
circumstances are propably deceptive. With respeel to the tempera* 



PRIMARY CONSTITUENTS OF CLIMATE. 115 

ture of the south pole itself, like that of the north pole, we have no 
means of forming an accurate estimate. 

Such is a summary account of the general distribution of tem- 
perature over the northern and southern hemispheres. Now amidst 
the infinite changes everywhere going on, there is nevertheless at 
the same place a certain average state of things which taken toge- 
ther, constitute what is called the climate of the place. Of climate, 
undoubtedly, temperature is the most important ingredient. But the 
circumstances, besides mere temperature, which enter into the 
formation of climate, are so numerous and diversified, and their 
operation, in consequence, is so complicated, that it becomes ex- 
ceedingly difficult to unravel and display them in a satisfactory 
manner. The constituents of climate, however, appear to be most 
naturally divided into two great sections ; viz., those of a primary 
kind depending upon the globular figure of the earth; upon its mo- 
tion in its orbit, and upon its axis : and those of a secondary, or a 
subsidiary kind, more immediately connected ivith the globe itself and 
depending upon the nature of its surface, as composed of land or 
water ; or, as connected with its atmosphere. Under these two 
points of view, we purpose to consider the subject of Climate, in 
the following chapters. 



CHAPTER IV. 

OF THE PRIMARY CONSTITUENTS OF CLIMATE I OR, OF THE TEMPERATURE 
OF THE EARTH, AS DEPENDENT ON ITS GLOBULAR FORM; AND ON ITS 
ANNUAL AND DIURNAL MOTIONS. 

The distance of the earth from the sun is such, that the solar 
rays may be supposed to arrive at the earth's surface in a state of 
parallelism. Now, when parallel rays fall upon a globe, it is ob- 
vious that any number of such rays falling perpendicularly, as at 
the equator of our earth, will occupy a very different portion of the 
surface of the globe, from what an equal number of the same rays 
will occupy where they fall obliquely, as in our polar regions. 
Hence, as we recede from the equator towards each pole, heat and 
light are diffused over gradually increasing portions of the earth's 
surface, and thus the intensity of both decreases in a like proportion. 
The exact law of such decrease is well known to mathematicians, 
but need not be here repeated. For our present purpose it is 
sufficient to observe, that among the natural causes affecting the 
distribution of heat and light in different latitudes, the globular figure 
of the earth is the principal. 



116 METEOROLOGY. 

The second great natural cause of the unequal distribution of 
heat and light over the earth, is the obliquity of the earth's motion 
in its orbit with respect to the plane of its equator. From this 
obliquity it happens that, during the annual revolution of the earth 
round the sun, every part of its surface, between the latitudes of 
23J° north and south from the equator, is in turn exposed to the 
perpendicular influence of the sun. To this oblique motion of the 
earth in its orbit we owe the endless variations and vicissitudes of 
seasons in different latitudes. 

There is also another circumstance connected with the earth's 
motion in its orbit, which, as partaking of the character of a pri- 
mary cause, may here be briefly noticed. The earth's orbit is not a 
circle, but an ellipse, of which the sun occupies one of the foci. 
Now, it has been so arranged, that in the middle of our winter, the 
earth is in that part of its orbit which is nearest to the sun. The 
earth, therefore, is at Christmas actually about three millions of 
miles nearer to the sun than at Midsummer. Hence it might be in- 
ferred that the temperature of the southern hemisphere, which 
during our winter is directly exposed to the sun, would be effected 
by this greater proximity. Such, how 7 ever, is not the case ; for this 
greater proximity to the sun is almost exactly counterbalanced by 
the swifter motion of the earth along this part of its orbit. The ec- 
centricity of the earth's orbit, therefore, has little or no influence on 
its temperature as at first sight might be supposed.* 

The third great natural cause affecting the distribution of heat 
and light over the earth is the earth's revolution on its axis. To 
this revolving motion we owe the innumerable minor vicissitudes of 
temperature, and of light and shade, daily and hourly experienced 
throughout the world. 

Such are the three great natural causes which regulate the dis- 
tribution of heat and light over our globe. They may be consi- 
dered as the necessary results of more general laws to which the 
Great Author of nature has chosen to restrict himself, and to which, 
as usual, He most rigidly adheres. Why, among the numerous 
possible means by which heat and light might have been, and in 
other instances, are distributed from a central sun over a distant 

* Or, perhaps, to quote the more precise explanation of Sir J. Herschel, " The 
momentary supply of heat received by the earth from the sun varies in the exact 
proportion of the angular velocity, that is of the momentary increase of longitude. 
Hence the greater proximity of the sun in the winter is exactly compensated for 
by the earth's more rapid motion, and thus an equilibrium of heat is, as it were, 
maintained. Were it not for this, the eccentricity of the orbit would materially in- 
fluence the transition of the seasons; and the effect would be to exaggerate the 
difference of summer and winter in the southern hemisphere, and to moderate it 
in the northern ; thus producing a more violent alternation of climate in the one 
hemisphere, and an approach to perpetual spring in the other. As it is, however, 
one such inequality subsists, but an equal and impartial distribution ol' heat and 
lijrhl in accorded to both." Treatise on Astronomy, p. 198, (Lardner'a Cyclo- 
pedia}' 



SECONDARY CONSTITUENTS OF CLIMATE. 117 

planet, these regulating causes have been selected for our earth, is 
absolutely unknown to us. That this selection has been made with 
some ulterior view we cannot hesitate to believe ; and one such 
view or purpose may have been to demonstrate .to us His wisdom 
and His power, by the methods chosen for obviating the difficulties 
necessarily resulting from these primary arrangements. In other 
planets, where other primary arrangements for the distribution of 
heat and light have been adopted, there are probably other modes 
of obviating the difficulties arising from them. Of such arrange- 
ments we can form no conception ; but to the inhabitants of these 
planets, they are doubtless an equal evidence of the wisdom and the 
power of the Deity. 



CHAPTER V. 

OF THE SECONDARY OR SUBSIDIARY CONSTITUENTS OF CLIMATE '. COMPRE- 
HENDING A SKETCH OF THOSE CIRCUMSTANCES CAPABLE OF INFLUENCING 
CLIMATE WHICH ARE MORE IMMEDIATELY CONNECTED WITH THE SUR- 
FACE OF THE GLOBE, AS CONSISTING OF LAND OR WATER ; OR WHICH 
ARE CONNECTED WITH THE ATMOSPHERE. 

In the preceding chapter we have alluded to the d ""culties or 
exigencies necessarily arising from the modes in which heat and 
light are distributed over our globe ; and of these, before we pro- 
ceed, it may be proper to specify some of the most striking. 

Had the heat and light derived from the sun to the earth not been 
in any way modified, the equatorial and the polar regions would 
have been alike inaccessible to organic life. The heat within the 
tropics and the cold towards the poles, would both have been de- 
structive ; while the intermediate regions would have been exposed 
to a constant succession of violent and sudden alternations of tem- 
perature, that would have rendered the present state of things no 
less an impossibility. In order, therefore, to render this earth an 
appropriate dwelling-place for such beings as at present occupy its 
surface, it was necessary that these extremes and sudden vicissitudes 
of temperature should be in some way diminished and alleviated. 
Accordingly these objects have been effected with the most con- 
summate wisdom. Indeed, some of the most splendid instances of 
design in nature are offered by those subsidiary arrangements, by 
which the difficulties necessarily arising from the primary arrange- 
ments are obviated or mitigated ; and by which the greater portion 
of the earth's surface has been made accessible to organic beings of 






118 METEOROLOGY. 

the same general character. These subsidiary arrangements it will 
be our business to explain in the present chapter. 

The secondary or subsidiary constituents of climate naturally 
divide themselves into two great sections ; viz., those connected with, 
the surface of the globe, as composed of land or water; and those con- 
nected with the atmosphere. 

In the following sketch of these constituents of climate we have 
endeavoured as usual to elucidate principles rather than to enter 
into details ; and, as far as is compatible with a general and popular 
view, have attempted to point out the modes in which the laws of 
light and heat, described in the first Book, operate, so as to produce 
the phenomena of climate. 

Section I. 

Of the secondary Constituents of Climate, immediately connected 
with the Surface of the Globe ; and depending on the Nature of 
that Surface as composed of Land or Water. 

In attempting to illustrate the operation of the laws of heat and 
light in the formation of climate, we shall follow the order nearly in 
which these laws were discussed in the previous chapters ; that is 
to say, we shall first consider the influence of heat and light as de- 
pending on their latent and decomposed forms; and afterwards 
their influence as depending on their radiation, conduction, and con- 
vection. 

In the prosecution of this difficult inquiry, the first circumstance 
which naturally claims our attention, is the absolute quantity of heat 
and light derived from the sun to the earth. 

1. Of the Proportion of Solar Heat and Light that actually arrives 
at the Surface of the Earth. Of the absolute quantity of heat and 
light derived from the sun to our globe we have no means of form- 
ing an exact estimate. M. Pouillet has attempted to show that the 
amount of heat annually received by the earth from the sun, is equal 
to that which would be required to melt a stratum of ice nearly 
forty-six feet thick, and covering its whole surface.* This estimate. 
however, is to be viewed only as a rude approximation. The diffi- 
culty lies not only in the impracticability of forming precise notions 
of the heat and light, which actually arrive at any given place in a 
given time; but in the utter impossibility of forming even a conjec- 
ture of those portions, which become latent or are otherwise lost in 
the passage of the solar rays through the atmosphere. The follow- 
ing observations will give some idea of the absolute quantity of light 
which reaches the earth; but it is proper to apprize the reader, that 
the results stated are to be considered as liable to much uncertainty. 

* Elemens de Physique exptirimentale et de M6t6orologie, torn. ii. p. 701. 



DISTRIBUTION OF HEAT AND LIGHT. 119 

Nor do we now whether they are equally applicable to heat ,which, 
though it obeys laws somewhat analogous to those of light, may 
nevertheless have its own peculiar laws. 

A vertical ray of light, in its passage through the clearest air, has 
been calculated to lose at least a fifth part of its intensity before it 
reaches the earth's surface. From this cause, and from the actual 
condition of the atmosphere, it has been estimated that under the 
most favourable circumstances, of a thousand rays emanating from 
the sun, only 378 on a medium, can penetrate to the surface of the 
earth at the equator, 228 at the latitude of 45°, and 110 at the poles ; 
while in cloudy weather these several proportions are a great deal 
less.* 

At present, our attention is solely directed to those portions of 
heat and light which thus make their way to the earth's surface. 
On those portions retained in the atmosphere we shall offer a few 
remarks hereafter. 

2. Of the Distribution of Heat and Light over the Earth's Surface 
in the latent and decomposed, Forms. The distribution of heat and 
light in the latent state over the surface of the globe, probably follows 
laws nearly similar to those of the distribution of sensible heat and 
light formerly metioned ; that is to say, the quantity latent, like the 
quantity sensible, diminishes from the equator towards the poles. 
On this subject, however, we want the necessary data, even for 
forming an opinion, much less for determining the amount and the 
exact law of distribution ; all of which must be left for future in- 
quirers. But of the infinite importance of the latency of heat, in the 
economy of nature, the following brief remarks will serve to convey 
some notion. 

Let us take the familiar instance of water, than by which im- 
portant fluid, the influence of the latency of heat cannot perhaps be 
more strikingly exemplified. We formerly showed that the tempera- 
ture of water in becoming solid on the one hand, and gaseous on 
the other, makes, as it were, a pause; and that these changes 
never take place abruptly. The consequence of this arrangement 
is, that ice and vapour are formed slowly and gradually, and as 
slowly and gradually again become water: while sudden transitions 
from one state to the other are thus entirely prevented. Were it 
not for this beautiful provision, we should be constantly liable to 
inundations, and other inconveniences, that would absolutely have 
rendered the world uninhabitable. It is impossible, therefore, to re- 
flect upon the arrangement itself, or upon the means by which it has 
been effected, without being impressed with the most profound ad- 
miration, not only of the wisdom of the Great Designer of the whole, 
but of his goodness and benevolence. 

The distribution of heat and light in the decomposed forms, like 

* Article Ciimate in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 



120 METEOROLOGY. 

the ether conditions of these great principles, decreases from the 
equa'or towards the poles. We formerly alluded to the opinion that 
heat, whatever it may consist of besides, appears occasionally to be 
convertible into the electric and magnetic energies. This conver- 
sion, under certain circumstances, may be true of sensible heat ; but 
heat, in the latent or combined form, is perhaps most liable to be so 
converted. Without pretending to offer any opinion, one way or 
the other, on this view of the nature of heat, we shall, nevertheless, 
adopt it for the sake of convenience, and shall, therefore, next con- 
sider the subject 

Of the General Distribution of Electricity and Magnetism over 
the Earth. The recent discoveries on the connexion of electricity 
and magnetism, formerly described, have thrown much light on the 
distribution "of these important agencies over the globe ; and the 
present extent of our knowledge regarding them will be understood 
by the general reader from the following summary. 

Every one is familiar with the ordinary phenomena of a magnetic 
needle freely suspended, and with its tendency to assume a position 
more or less approaching to parallelism to the earth's axis ; that is 
to say, that all over the world it points nearly north and south. 
Most persons, probably, are also acquainted with the phenomenon 
termed the dip or inclination of the magnetic needle : thus, in the 
latitude of London, a needle exactly poised and freely suspended, 
instead of assuming a horizontal position, will settle at an angle of 
70°, the north pole being downwards. If we carry such a needle 
southwards, towards the equator, we observe that the dip gradually 
diminishes ; till at a certain point, nearly coinciding with the earth's 
equator, it has no dip at all, but assumes a perfectly horizontal posi- 
tion. As we still proceed towards the south, the dip again makes 
its appearance, but in an opposite direction, the south pole being now 
next the earth's surface. To understand the reason of this dip of 
the magnetic needle and of its general direction, we have only to 
consider that the earth itself is a magnet, the poles of which are 
situated beneath its surface. The directive property of the needle 
is owing to these poles; and when the needle is on the north side of 
the equator, the north pole of the earth having the greatest effect, 
the needle is attracted downwards, towards the north pole; hence, 
exactly over the pole the needle would be vertical. Similar pheno- 
mena happen in the southern hemisphere ; but here the south pole 
predominates, and, of course, depresses the corresponding pole oi 
the needle; while, at the magnetic equator, from the equal action of 
both poles, the needle will assume an exactly horizontal position. It 
may be remarked, that neither the magnetic poles nor the magnetic 
equator coincide exactly with those of the earth: and that this non- 
coincidence is owing to, or rather constitutes, what is termed the 
variation of the needle; which is not only different in different parts 
of the world, but appears to be liable to periodical differences in the 



DISTRIBUTION OF ELECTRICITY AND MAGNETISM. 121 

same place, at present not well understood. Such are the principal 
phenomena of the magnetic needle as demonstrative of the earth's 
magnetism, and which we shall now attempt to illustrate a little 
further. 

We have mentioned, that the earth may be considered as a great 
magnet. Now, we have formerly shown that when a magnetic 
needle is in its natural position of north and south, there exist elec- 
trical currents in planes at right angles to the needle, descending on 
its east side, passing under it from east to west, and ascending on its 
west side. Hence, we must suppose currents of electricity to cir- 
culate within the earth, more especially near its surface, and to be 
constantly passing from east to west, in planes parallel to the mag- 
netic equator; which electrical currents, if such can be demonstra- 
ted to exist, will in their turn completely account for the magnetic 
directive property of the earth. The next question is, therefore, 
how far we are justified in assuming the existence of such electric 
currents within the earth ? 

We have already alluded to the opinion that heat occasionally 
passes into the electric and magnetic energies ; an opinion which 
some consider to derive much probability from the phenomena of 
what has been termed thermo-electricity ; that is to say, electricity 
(and magnetism) developed by the unequal distribution of heat 
through bodies. Now, whether the phenomena of thermo-electri- 
city actually depend on the decomposition of heat, latent or sensible, 
or upon any other cause, is of little importance; the phenomena 
themselves are well established, and they seem to account, in the 
most satisfactory manner, for the general distribution of electricity 
and magnetism over the earth. The explanation is this: the earth 
during its diurnal motion on its axis from w r est to east, has its sur- 
face successively exposed to the solar rays in an opposite direction, 
or from east io west. The surface of the earth, therefore, particu- 
larly between the tropics, will be heated and cooled in succession, 
from east to west, and currents of electricity, on thermo-electric 
principles, will at the same time be established in the same direction: 
now these currents once established from east to west, will, of 
course, give occasion to the magnetism of the earth from north to 
south. Hence the magnetic directive pow T er of the earth, in a direc- 
tion nearly parallel with its axis, is derived from the thermo-electric 
currents, induced in its equatorial regions by the unequal distribu- 
tion of heat there present, and depending principally on its diurnal 
motion. 

These recent and beautiful discoveries show, in the most striking 
manner, that the operations of nature are more extraordinary, and 
indicate more of simplicity and wisdom of design in proportion as 
they are better understood. By what simple expedients, when 
known, are those wonderful phenomena of the earth's electricity and 
magnetism produced, which formerly appeared so anomalous and 

11 



122 METEOROLOGY. 

perplexing ! And what encouragement do these discoveries hold 
out to us, with respect to future discoveries, that may throw still fur- 
ther light upon the operations of the Great Architect of the uni- 
verse. 

Of the Distribution of Light in the decomposed Form over the 
Globe. Every one is familiar with the general fact, that the most 
splendid exhibitions of colours of every description are displayed in 
the warmer climates ; and that the tints of natural objects, gene- 
rally speaking, become more sad and faded as we approach the 
colder regions, till they merge into the white of the polar snows. 
Most persons, also, are aware of the well known circumstances 
attending the total abstraction of light from plants and animals, and 
that they thus become more or less white or etiolated. Hence, we 
need scarcely do more than remind the reader, of what must be 
already familiar to him, viz., that the decided colours of tropical 
productions of every kind, whether we consider the gaudy plumage 
of the birds, or the variegated adornment of the fishes and insects, 
&c, are so striking, as to be quite characteristic of these produc- 
tions. In the higher latitudes, also, where the contrast between the 
summer and winter seasons is very great, the colours of some ani- 
mals vary with the seasons; being in the summer generally of some 
dark hue, but in the winter nearly white ; while still further, in the 
polar regions all is more or less white, and the natural covering of 
the earth, the snow, is the whitest body in nature. Putting out of 
sight the great importance of the colours of objects, which will fall 
more naturally to be spoken of hereafter ; it may be remarked here, 
that colours have usually been considered as offering to us one of 
the most striking instances of the benevolence of the Deity. Co- 
lours are universally agreeable to mankind ; and the most incurious 
and igorant are attracted by, and delighted with, showy exhibitions 
of them. Now, all this pleasure is the gratituous gilt of the Creator, 
and places his benevolence in the strongest possible point of view. 
There was no reason why man should have distinguished colours at 
all, much less have been delighted with them: but what is the tact ' 
not only are we gifted with organs exquisitely sensible to the beauty 
of colours; but, as if solely to gratify this feeling, the whole of na- 
ture, from the highest to the lowest of her productions, forms one 
gorgeously coloured picture, in which every possible tint is con- 
trasted or associated in every possible manner. Is there a human 
being who can witness the splendid colouring of the atmosphere 
above him by the setting sun ; who can witness the beauty and end- 
less variety of tint displayed by every object of the laodsca] e 
around him, down to the minutest insect or flower or pebble at his 
feet; who is conscious of the pleasure he derives from these objects, 
and who reflects that this pleasure was not necessary to his exis- 
tence, and might have been withheld 1 Is there, we ask, a human 



ABSORPTION, ETC. OF HEAT AND LIGHT. 123 

being who duly considers all these things, and who will dare to 
assert that the Being who made them all is not benevolent'? 

3. Of the Laws of Absorption, Radiation, and Refection of Heat 
and Light. — These laws as applied to the earth generally, are at 
present but very imperfectly understood. The following remarks 
will serve to convey some idea of the little we know on the subject. 

The reader will bear in mind what was formerly stated, that the 
absorbing power of bodies with respect to heat (and perhaps light 
also) is directly as their radiating power, and inversely as their re- 
flecting power. Such is the general opinion ; and, as far as solar 
heat and light are concerned, this opinion appears to be w T ell 
founded ; but we shall see presently that there are strong reasons for 
suspecting that the radiating power does not always follow the 
same law as the absorbing power. In the mean time, however, we 
shall proceed to state what has been advanced on these points. 

Mr. Daniell has attempted to show that the absorption and ra- 
diation of solar heat increase as we proceed from the equator to- 
ward the poles. Thus, in a tropical climate, and under a vertical 
sun, the greatest extent of the difference between two thermome- 
ters, the one covered w T ith black wool, and exposed to the direct 
rays of the sun, in order that it may absorb to the utmost the inci- 
dent heat, and the other, uncovered in the shade, is no more than 
about 47° ; while tw r o thermometers, similarly circumstanced, in the 
middle of summer, in London, give a difference of 65° ; and in the 
Arctic regions the difference often amounts to 90° at least : so that 
in the Arctic regions there is twice as much heat and light absorbed 
under similar circumstances, as there is in the tropical regions. The 
same gentleman has also attempted to show (what might have been 
inferred indeed from the assumed relation between the absorption 
and radiation of heat and light above-mentioned), that the radia- 
tion of heat from the earth's surface obeys similar laws; that is to 
say, that the quantity radiated from the earth increases from the 
equator toward the poles. Laws somewhat analogous, and which, 
when they are better understood, will probably throw much in- 
formation upon these phenomena, seem to hold with respect to 
light. Thus we formerly mentioned that when a ray of light falls 
upon fluids, transparent bodies, or metals, the quantity reflected in- 
creases with the angle of incidence reckoned from the perpendicular ; 
while the quantity absorbed of course decreases in the same pro- 
portion : but that on the contrary when a ray falls upon white opaque 
bodies, the quantity reflected decreases as the angle of incidence in- 
creases ; while, of course, the quantity absorbed, increases in the 
like proportion. Hence if heat follows the same law, it is evident 
that the quantity of heat absorbed by the earth from the solar rays, 
must increase from the equator towards the poles ; that is to say, as 
the angle of their incidence increases, as Mr. Daniell has attempted 
to show. It is proper, however, to observe that Mr. DanielPs views 



124 METEOROLOGY. 

have been called in question, and that some late observations made 
in high latitudes do not entirely corroborate them.* We have 
alluded to the subject merely with the view of drawing the atten- 
tion of Meteorologists to it as one of great interest and curiosity, 
and as one by no means at present understood. There is every 
reason to believe that the absorption (and perhaps the radiation) of 
heat and light, under some of its modifications, are much influenced 
by polarization, and consequently by certain angles of incidence and 
reflection ; and that these circumstances, in consequence, have 
much to do with the distribution of heat and light, particularly in 
the higher latitudes, where they may exert no small influence upon 
organized beings. The above observations seem to point to the 
existence of certain general laws, which no doubt hereafter will be 
elucidated. 

In noticing the influence of different colours on the absorption 
and reflection of heat and light, we stated that black and dark 
colours generally absorb most and reflect least ; and vice versa, that 
white and light colours, reflect most and absorb least ; and we are 
now come to illustrate this interesting subject, and to consider the 
following questions. — Why does whiteness prevail in the polar re- 
gions? Why, for instance, is snow white? On the contrary, why 
are all sorts of dark and decided colours met with in the tropical 
climates, except whiteness, which is comparatively rare? Might 
not snow have been black instead of white ; which was just as likely 
if its colour had been the result of accident ? or might not white- 
ness have been predominant under the equator ? Perhaps the best 
mode of answering these questions, and of placing the subject in a 
striking view, is to examine what would have been the consequence, 
if whiteness had prevailed under the equator, and blackness at the 
poles. 

As heat and light are supposed to obey nearly the same laws, as 
far as absorption, radiation, and reflection are concerned, it is ob- 
vious that if white had prevailed in the tropical climates, almost all 
the solar heat and light, instead of being absorbed, would have been 
reflected. The consequence of this reflection would have been, 
that the accumulation of heat and the glare of light in the lower re- 
gions of the atmosphere, near the surface of the earth, would have 
been intolerable, and would have rendered these regions quite unin- 
habitable, at least by the present race of beings. The surface of 
the earth, also, though it would have been heated slowly, would 

* We allude here to the observations made in those regions, and given in the ap- 
pendix to Captain Franklin's Second Journey, by Dr. Richardson, Captain Back, 
and Lieutenant Kendal, in these observations Dr. U states that the radiation was 
much stronger in the spring months, when the ground wan covered with snow t than in 
the summer months, when the altitude of the sun was greatest, \)y. R. ascribes 
this greater radiation to the greater clearness of the air at these seasons, but were 
there no other reasons ? 



ABSORPTION, ETC. OF HEAT AND LIGHT. 125 

hare been overheated in time ; and at length would probably have 
become so very hot, from its comparatively low radiating powers, 
that the heat could not have been borne. As it is, the heat and light 
of the sun are absorbed readily, and as freely given off again by 
radiation ; or perhaps the heat, like the light, is decomposed ; and 
thus the whole is preserved in that comparatively moderate and 
nicely balanced state, which renders even the hottest parts of the 
earth inhabitable. 

On the other hand let us consider for a moment what would have 
been the consequence if snow had been black, or in other words, if 
blackness had prevailed in the polar regions. In this case, all the 
little light and heat that reach them would have been absorbed, and 
the effect would have been darkness, more or less complete. From 
the rapid melting also of the snow on the least exposure to heat and 
light, we should have been constantly liable to inundations. Thus 
the whole of the polar regions of the earth would have been one 
dark and dreary void, inaccessible to organic life. But by the pre- 
sent arrangement, all these consequences are obviated. The white 
snow absorbs a certain portion of light and of heat (by a beautiful 
provision more as the angle of incidence increases'?) while so much 
light is reflected as is useful, and no more.* Thus the adjustment 
of the colours of bodies to the circumstances in which they are 
placed, constitutes an example of the expedients by which those 
minor incongruities are obviated, that are necessarily incidental to 
the modes in which heat and light are distributed over the globe ; 
and presents altogether one of the most obvious and beautiful in- 
stances of design connected with the agency of heat and light. 

Lastly, it may be worth while to draw the attention of the reader 
to the striking contrast displayed between the ponderable and im- 
ponderable forms of matter, as to the ease with which they are de- 
composed, and the modes in which they exist in nature. 

We have seen that to preserve the homogeneity and integrity of 
ponderable bodies, as of water and air, elaborate arrangements have 
been adopted, evincing the most extraordinary design and wisdom ; 
because the decomposition or derangement of water and air would 
at once prove destructive to organized beings. But, to preserve the 
homogeneity of heat, and particularly of light, no such care is shown, 

* The reader will observe that, under ordinary circumstances, white reflects 
most and of course absorbs and radiates least solar heat and light ; but if the above 
remarks on light be well-founded, the absorption of light (and heat ?) by white 
bodies increases with the angle of incidence. Now, as nothing 1 of this sort is 
known, or c;m be well conceived to happen, with respect to radiation, the doubt 
expressed at the beginning of this section arises, viz., whether under all circum- 
stances, the radiating and absorbing powers of bodies obey similar laws, even as 
far as the solar rays are concerned The absorption and radiation of heat of low 
intensity, and unaccompanied by light, seem to depend more upon the nature of 
the surface than upon colour. It must be admitted, however, that at present a 
great deal of obscurity hangs over the whole of this subject. 

11* 



126 METEOROLOGY. 

because no such care was particularly necessary. The decompo- 
sitions of these agencies, therefore, are permitted to take their na- 
tural course ; and by an admirable provision, so far are colours, 
magnetism, &c. from being injurious to us, that they constitute one 
of the chief sources of our knowledge and happiness ! 

4. Of the Conduction of Heat below the Earth's Surface on Land. 
The soil, from a few inches to a foot or more below the surface, 
participates very much in the fluctuations of the surface tempera- 
ture. In general, perhaps, it may be stated, that the temperature of 
the surface of the earth is a little above that of the incumbent atmo- 
sphere by day, and below it by night ; though much will depend in 
this respect upon the nature of the soil, on its radiating and con- 
ducting powers, and on a multiplicity of other conditions that will 
readily occur to the reader. At a certain distance, however, below 
the surface, and varying with the latitude and other circumstances, 
there must be a determinate stratum, where the temperature is uni- 
form, or nearly so, throughout the year. Experiments on this sub- 
ject are very limited ; but there is reason to believe, that the tempe- 
rature of this invariable stratum coincides nearly, with the mean 
annual temperature of the place ; and that its depth below the sur- 
face, in different latitudes, varies between forty and eighty feet. The 
reader need scarcely be reminded, that the well known uniformity 
of the temperature of cellars and caves, depends chiefly upon the cir- 
cumstances we are now considering. As an instance of the uni- 
formity of temperature in such places, it may be mentioned, that a 
thermometer placed in the caves under the observatory in Paris, at 
a depth of about eighty-five feet below the surface, has, during fifty 
years, scarcely varied more than a quarter of a degree from 11.82° 
of the centigrade scale ; equal very nearly to 53i° of Fahrenheit. 

A few experiments have been made to determine the variation of 
the temperature, throughout the year at different depths from the 
surface, down to the invariable stratum ; and the following is a sum- 
mary of the results, which, perhaps, may be considered as generally 
applicable to the northern hemisphere. 

In the month of August the temperature of the earth goes on de- 
creasing in nearly a uniform manner, from a little below the surface 
to the stratum of invariable temperature. In the month of Septem- 
ber the temperature is nearly uniform to fifteen or twenty feel below 
the surface; beyond which depth the temperature decreases a little 
and slowly to the stratum of invariable temperature. During the 
months of October and November the temperature increases from 
the surface to the depth of fifteen or twenty feet : and below this 
point it remains nearly uniform to the invariable stratum. During 
December, January, and February, the temperature, being at its 
minimum upon the surface, increases in a manner nearly uniform, 
downwards to the invariable stratum. During March and April 
there is a rapid decrease <>f temperature to the depth of one or two 



PROPAGATION OF HEAT, ETC., IN WATER. 127 

feet ; below this depth the temperature decreases less rapidly : and still 
lower, the temperature increases a little. During the months of 
May, June, and July, the temperature being at its maximum, at the 
surface, decreases downwards, but less rapidly and to a greater 
depth ; it then begins to increase a little till it attains the tempera- 
ture of the invariable stratum. The rapidity and degree, however, 
with which these changes take place, as well as the changes them- 
selves, appear to fluctuate very considerably not only in different 
places under the same Isothermal line, but in the same place in dif- 
ferent seasons. 

Since heat is propagated through the soil by conduction, of course 
it is propagated in all directions. Hence, it may be supposed to 
move laterally as well as downwards ; and, generally speaking, the 
temperatures of contiguous spots probably tend to equalize each 
other. But upon the whole, the influence of the lateral propagation 
of heat through the solid parts of the earth, must be very limited. 

5. Of the Propagation of Heat and Light below the Earth's Sur- 
face in Water. Water is a very imperfect conductor of heat in the 
usual acceptation of the term. Thus, almost any degree of heat 
may be applied, for a considerable time, to the upper surface of a 
mass of water, without materially influencing the temperature 
below ; so imperfectly and slowly is heat conducted through this 
fluid. The process by which heat is communicated through water, 
we have termed convection. When heat is applied to the bottom of 
a vessel full of this fluid, the portion of the water first heated expands 
in bulk, and thus becomes specifically lighter ; it then rises to the 
top, carrying with it the newly acquired temperature, while another 
cold portion, sinking to the bottom, is heated in turn, and so on, till 
the whole mass becomes uniformly heated. 

With respect to the propagation of light through water, it has 
been calculated that not a tenth part of the incident light can ad- 
vance five fathoms downwards in the most translucent water; that 
even of vertical rays, one half is lost in the first seventeen feet, and 
that they become reduced to one-fourth by traversing thirty-four 
feet, which correspond to the mass of an atmosphere. It thus fol- 
lows, that only the hundred thousandth part of the vertical rays can 
penetrate below forty-seven fathoms, which is scarcely equal to 
the glimmer of twilight; and that the depths of the ocean must be 
always in perpetual darkness.* 

Such are the general principles by which heat and light are pro- 
pagated in water. But in speaking of this fluid in a former chapter, 
we alluded to one of the physical properties of water, of the utmost 
importance in the economy of nature, and which, perhaps, almost 
more than anything else, indicates design ; since, like the composi- 
tion of the atmosphere, this property of water constitutes an excep- 

*Article Climate, in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 



128 METEOROLOGY. 

tion, as it were, to a general law, expressly directed to a particular 
object. We have mentioned that it is a general law, that all bodies, 
in every state of aggregation, expand by heat and contract by cold ; 
now water forms a marked exception to this law. Like other 
bodies, water continues to contract on the removal of heat, till its 
temperature comes down to within a certain distance (7° or 8°) from 
its freezing point. At this distance, water begins again to expand, 
and the expansion continues till it becomes ice; at which moment 
of freezing, a sudden and considerable expansion takes place. Hence, 
the specific gravity of ice is decidedly less than that of water, and 
the solid necessarily swims on the surface of the fluid. The impor- 
tance of this anomalous property of w ? ater is so great, that it is 
doubtful whether the present order of nature could have existed 
without it, even although everything else in the world had remained 
the same. For instance, were it not for the comparative lightness 
of ice, this solid, instead of beginning to be formed at the surface of 
water, would have begun to be formed at the bottom ; as the colder 
water from its greater specific gravity would naturally have sunk : 
for similar reasons, also, the lower stratum of ice would have been 
the last to have melted. Now, let us reflect for a moment upon the 
consequences of such an arrangement. In the northern and indeed 
even in temperate climates, the bottoms of all lakes and deep waters 
would have been a mass of ice, and totally inaccessible, therefore, 
to organized beings. During the summer a few feet of the upper part 
of the ice, would, perhaps have been melted; but what little had 
thus become melted in summer, would again have become solid 
during winter; and as the accumulations of ice would have been 
constant, all the seas, even perhaps to the tropical climates, at least 
at their bottom, would, long before this time, have been a mass of 
ice! But what in reality happens 1 In consequence of the above 
anomalous properties of water, this mischief is entirely prevented, 
and not a particle of ice can be formed in a lake or other collection 
of water, till the whole mass is cooled down to the temperature of 
40°, at which temperature the specific gravity of water is at its 
maximum. 

These properties of water operate in the following manner. On 
the application of cold to the surface of water, the cooled portion 
sinks, and its descent forces up a portion of warmer water to the 
surface, which after communicating some of its heat to the super- 
incumbent air, sinks in its turn ; and this process goes on for a 
greater or less time according to the depth of the water. ]i the 
depth be not very considerable, the whole body of water becomes 
rooled down to 40°; at which temperature the specific gravity not 
increasing, the circulation ceases, and the surface of the water, (not 
the bottom) becomes at length so far cooled as to be covered with 
ice. If the depth of the water be considerable, the application oi 
cold may be long continued without the result o\ freezing; hence. 



PROPAGATION OF HEAT, ETC. IN WATER. 129 

in this and in other countries, not intensely cold, it often happens 
that deep lakes remain unfrozen during the coldest winters. 

The above anomalous properties of the expansion of water and its 
consequences, have always struck us as presenting the most re- 
markable instance of design in the whole order of nature — an in- 
stance of something done expressly, and almost (could we indeed 
conceive such a thing of the Deity), at second thought, to accomplish 
a particular object. Further, if in conjunction with this anomalous 
property of water, we take into account the still more anomalous 
constitution of atmospheric air, and at the same time consider the 
relations of water and air to organic existence, we are unavoidably 
driven to the conclusion, that the Maker of water and of air has 
designedly created these anomalies, to obviate difficulties which 
would have rendered organic existence a physical impossibility. 
Thus, had means not been taken to secure the fluidity of water 
under the varying circumstances of temperature in which it is 
placed : the greater portion of this fluid in the world would long ago 
have been a solid mass of ice, and consequently inaccessible to or- 
ganic life. Had means not been taken to secure the homogeneity 
of air at all times, and under all circumstances, this important me- 
dium would not only have been constantly liable to local deterio- 
rations ; but its properties, long ere now, would have probably 
become deteriorated to such a degree, as to have rendered the per- 
manence of organic life not less physically impossible. Nor do the 
suppositions which the sceptic will urge, that these properties of 
water and air flow naturally from their constitution, diminish the 
force of the argument. The force of the argument lies, in the first 
place, in the fact that water and air have been created with such 
anomalous properties ; and, in the next and chief place, that these 
anomalous properties have been brought into action 'precisely where 
they are required. Moreover, the argument is greatly strengthened, 
by the fact that two anomalies, rather than that two ordinary circum- 
stances, have been thus expressly adjusted. 

Having stated the general principles on which heat is distributed 
through water, and its most remarkable consequence ; we are now 
to enter into a few details with respect to some other consequences 
of this distribution. Of these one of the most striking is, that the 
temperature of the water at the bottoms of deep lakes or inland seas, 
must remain nearly uniform during the whole year. Thus it has 
been found that the temperature of the water at the bottoms of many 
of the lakes in Switzerland often varies no more than 3° or 4°, while 
the temperature of the surface often varies 20° or 30°. Hence in 
deep waters, in temperate climates, the changes of temperature are 
chiefly confined to the upper strata of the water; nor can ice (ex- 
cept from some very sudden and powerful accessions of frost) form 
on the surface of such a lake, till, as before observed, the whole of 
the water in it is cooled down to 40°, at which temperature all cir- 



130 METEOROLOGY. 

culation ceases. When a coat of ice has been once formed, this 
ice, as we shall see presently, has also a powerful tendency to pre- 
vent the further cooling of the inferior strata. 

With respect to waters in motion, as small streams, or rivers of 
no great depth and magnitude, and containing fresh waters ; though 
unfavourably circumstanced for freezing, they do nevertheless con- 
geal. The process usually commences at the shores where the 
water is shallowest, and its motion is least rapid ; from whence the 
ice gradually advances towards the centre of the stream. When 
the whole of the surface has once become fixed, congelation goes 
on actively, particularly by night. As the thickness of the ice in- 
creases, however, the quantity added daily, even supposing the cold 
to remain the same, gradually diminishes, on account of the bad 
conducting power of the ice. Hence in a block of ice taken from 
a river or lake, we may often observe the strata corresponding with 
the daily, or rather nightly additions, presenting a gradually decreas- 
ing series from several inches down to a few lines in thickness. 

Of the Temperature of the Waters of the Ocean at great Depths. — 
Between the Tropics, the temperature of the ocean diminishes with 
the depth ; in the Polar seas, on the contrary, the temperature aug- 
ments with the depth. In the temperate seas, comprised between 
30° and 70° of latitude, the temperature of the water gradually de- 
creases as the latitude increases, until about the latitude of 70°; 
when the temperature begins to rise as before mentioned. Hence 
about the latitude of 70° there exists a zone or band at which the 
mean temperature of the ocean is very nearly constant at all depths. 
The temperatures of particular parts of the ocean, however, have 
been observed to be much influenced by the depth and extent of the 
water, particularly in high latitudes. 

We have already mentioned the influence of the saline matters of 
the ocean upon the freezing point of sea-water, and we have now to 
point out the important consequence of this property in the economy 
of nature. In its natural state sea-water freezes at about 28° or 29°, 
but when it has been concentrated by previous freezing the congeal- 
ing point is reduced to 15° or 1(5°; while water saturated with salt, 
it is said, does not freeze at a temperature above 5°. Besides this 
property of lowering the freezing point of sea-water, the saline mat- 
ters also increase its specific gravity and its point of maximum den- 
sity. Hence from these circumstances, and from their immense 
depth and extent, the waters of the ocean resist freezing still more 
effectually than even running fresh water, and are indeed rarely 
frozen, except in latitudes where the most intense cold prevails. 

Of the under Currents of the Ocean existing between the Equato- 
rial and Polar Regions. — That the diminished temperature of the 
waters of the ocean, at great depths near the equator, could not have 
been acquired in the torrid zone, is evident ; nor. on the other hand, 
could the comparatively high temperature o( the waters, at the hot- 



TEMPERATURE BY LAND AND WATER. 131 

torn of the Polar seas, have been acquired in the frigid zone; at least 
this high temperature of the Polar seas cannot be caused from with- 
out. Hence it has been supposed that there is a constant inter- 
change going on between the waters of the Equatorial, and those of 
the Polar regions ; though there are considerable difficulties at pre- 
sent as to the means by which this interchange is effected. These 
difficulties arise principally from some uncertainty with respect to 
the point of maximum density of sea-water, which does not appear 
to be satisfactorily established. Whether in the profound and com- 
paratively quiescent abyss of the ocean, the process of diffusion, or 
the central heat of the earth formerly alluded to, exert any influence, 
we have no means of determining. But if a central heat really do 
exist, its effects must be considerable, particularly within the frigid 
zone. Whatever be the cause of this approach to uniformity of 
temperature throughout the waters of the ocean, at great depths all 
over the globe, its use in the economy of nature, in tending to equa- 
lize the distribution of temperature, cannot be questioned ; since it 
constitutes one of those beautiful provisions by which the difficulties 
of the distribution of temperature, necessarily incidental to the earth's 
figure and motions, are obviated ; whilst among the minor circum- 
stances contributing to the same end, may be mentioned the tides 
and the innumerable superficial currents produced by winds and by 
other causes which are to be considered elsewhere. 

We have alluded, in a former chapter, to the difference of tempe- 
rature as depending upon whether the surface be land or sea ; and 
perhaps it may not be amiss, in this place, to make a few remarks 
upon the actual general amount of the differences of temperature, as 
produced by land and water. 

In the middle of oceans, and far from the influence of land, the 
diurnal change of temperature of the air near the surface of the sea 
is much less than upon land. Thus, in the equatorial regions the 
greatest difference between the temperature of the day and that of 
the night at sea is said to amount to 3° or 4° only; while upon land 
the difference often amounts to 9° or 10°. In temperate regions, and 
particularly in latitudes extending from 25° to 50°, the difference be- 
tween the maximum and the minimum diurnal ran^e of the thermo- 
meter at sea is still very trifling, amounting only to 4° or 6°; while 
upon the continents, as for example, at Paris, the range often amounts 
to 20° or 30°. To these circumstances it is owing that small insular 
situations, partaking of the character of the surrounding ocean, are 
much less liable to great diurnal changes than continents ; and hence, 
in general, they possess more equable climates. 

Both by sea and land the minimum temperature takes place about 
sunrise. The maximum temperature at sea occurs about noon, or 
very soon after ; while upon land it takes place from two to three 
hours after noon. Between the tropics the maximum temperature 
of the air is said to exceed a little that of the surface of the sea. 



132 METEOROLOGY. 

But when the temperatures are observed at short intervals, as for 
example, every four hours, and all the temperatures are compared, 
the results are different ; and they seem to show that even between 
the tropics the temperature of the surface of the sea is higher than 
that of the incumbent atmosphere. Between the latitudes of 25° 
and 50° the air is rarely warmer than the surface of the sea ; and 
in the Polar regions it is very unusual to find the air as warm as the 
sea ; it is in fact almost always colder, and generally very much 
colder. 



As connected with this part of our subject, it may perhaps, before 
we close, be desirable to offer a few remarks upon the temperature of 
natural springs, and their relation to the mean temperature of the 
earth at the places where they make their appearance. 

Springs discharging large quantities of water, and thus indicating 
that they come from considerable depths below the surface of the 
earth, preserve nearly the same temperature during the whole year. 
In our hemisphere, what little augmentation of temperature springs 
undergo, is generally in the month of September, while they are 
coldest in the month of March ; though the differences seldom ex- 
ceed two or three degrees. If we compare the temperature of the 
springs of any place, with the mean annual temperature of that 
pla.ce, we find that there is a near connexion between the two, all 
over the globe. In the torrid zone, however, the mean annual tem- 
perature of the air is usually higher by three or four degrees than 
that of the springs ; while in the temperate zone, on the contrary, 
the springs are warmer than the air. The excess of temperature of 
springs, as compared with the mean annual temperature, goes on 
increasing with the latitude ; so that, between 60° and 70° of lati- 
tude, this excess amounts to from 5° to 7° ; a circumstance we shall 
again have occasion to notice. Other things being the same, the 
temperature of springs varies considerably according to their co- 
piousness ; as a large body of water will be less liable to be influ- 
enced by the surrounding soil, than a smaller body of water ; and 
may even, in turn, influence the temperature of the soil itself. 

The subject of thermal springs, as intimately connected with the 
history of volcanoes, belongs to the Geologist. 

We have thus enumerated the principal circumstances connected 
with the distribution of temperature upon the surface of the earth, 
and at such parts below it as are within our reach. We now come 
to the second great division of the subject of climates ; viz., that con- 
nected with the atmosphere. 



DISTRIBUTION OF HEAT IN THE ATMOSPHERE. 133 



Section II. 

Of the Secondary Constituents of Climate immediately connected ivith 

the Atmosphere. 

The phenomena of the atmosphere originally constituted the pro- 
per study of the Meteorologist, and even yet they claim the largest 
share of his attention. The subject, in all its bearings, is very ex- 
tensive, and many of the details are imperfectly understood. We 
shall endeavour to present a brief outline of the principal phenomena 
under the following heads. — Of the distribution of heat and of light 
through the atmosphere, and of the consequences ; — of the distribution 
of water through the atmosphere, and of the phenomena dependent 
upon this distribution ; and, lastly, — of the occasional presence of 
foreign bodies in the atmosphere. 

1. Of the Distribution of Heat and of Light through the Atmosphere, 
and of the Consequences. — Every one is familiar with the general 
fact of the diminished temperature of the higher regions of our at- 
mosphere ; and that in the hottest countries, by ascending a lofty 
mountain, we encounter, at different heights, every variety of tem- 
perature, even to that of perpetual snow, and of the Polar regions. 
One of the first circumstances, therefore, that claims the attention of 
the Meteorologist, is the law of the distribution of sensible heat, or 
of temperature, through the atmosphere. 

The law of the distribution of temperature through the atmosphere 
is tolerably uniform, though it is occasionally liable to variations and 
interruptions, depending upon local differences, and perhaps upon 
other circumstances, not satisfactorily understood. The mean re- 
sults of a great number of observations made in different parts of 
the world appear to show, that for every 100 yards of altitude, Fah- 
renheit's thermometer sinks one degree. This statement, probably, 
does not, within moderate limits, differ much from the truth ; though 
some late researches have rendered it probable that while at differ- 
ent heights the rate of the decrease of temperature is uniform, the 
rate of altitude increases constantly, and according to laws very 
similar all over the world; that is to say, supposing the first 252 
feet are equal to one degree, the second degree will be equal to 255 
feet, the third to 258, the fourth to 261, &c. 

The causes upon which this great cold of the higher regions de- 
pends are chiefly the two following; first, the perfect permeability 
of the atmosphere to the solar rays, on which account they radiate 
through it almost without affecting its temperature, till reaching the 
earth they exert their utmost force; and, secondly, the increased 
capacity for heat which air possesses in proportion as it becomes 
more rare. From the first of these causes it happens that the tem- 

12 



134 METEOROLOGY. 

perature of the lower regions of the atmosphere is derived, not im- 
mediately from the sun, but from the earth. The earth absorbing 
the solar heat, recommunicates it to that portion of the atmosphere 
immediately incumbent on the surface, while all the atmosphere 
above remains unaffected ; for though, from diminished specific gra- 
vity, heated air naturally ascends, yet as its capacity for heat at the 
same time increases, ascending air rapidly loses its sensible heat : as 
in the second place we have to explain. 

Dr. Dalton, and afterwards Sir John Leslie more completely, have 
attempted to show that the equilibrium of heat in the atmosphere is 
obtained ivhen each of its molecules, or in other words, when the same 
weight of air, in the same 'perpendicular column, is possessed of the 
same quantity of heat. Now, since atmospheric pressure diminishes 
with the height according to a certain law, it is obvious that the 
same weights of air at the surface of the earth, and in the higher 
regions, will occupy very different spaces. But since the absolute 
quantity of heat is exactly the same in both portions, it is likewise 
obvious that in the higher regions of the atmosphere, from the in- 
creased capacity of the air for heat, the quantity of latent heat is 
gradually augmented, while the quantity remaining sensible, becomes 
less. Hence the temperature of the air diminishes as we ascend, 
exactly in the proportion that its latent heat, that is to say. its capa- 
city for heat as produced by rarefaction, increases. In consequence 
of this arrangement, to use the words of Dr. Thomson, " if a quan- 
tity of cold air were suddenly transported from an elevated region 
to the surface of the sea, its density would be continually increasing 
during its descent, while its latent heat would diminish in the same 
proportion ; and when it reached the level of the sea its temperature 
would be just as high as that of other portions of air in the same 
latitude and elevation. Air, therefore, does not feel cold in conse- 
quence of falling from an elevated situation, though this be an opinion 
commonly entertained, but in consequence of its being suddenly 
transported from a more northerly to a more southerly situation."* 
Thus, to the above beautiful and simple law, w 7 e owe the permanent 
state of equilibrium of temperature in the atmosphere ; for, in spite 
of all the disturbances constantly produced by minor causes, this 
equilibrium, from the natural tendency to right itself, is never very 
seriously affected. 

Of the Limits of Perpetual Snow. — Connected with the diminution 
of temperature in the higher regions of the atmosphere are the limits 
of perpetual snow in different latitudes. These limits, of course, may 
be naturally supposed to follow the mean temperature of 32°, from 
the level of the sea in the Polar regions to the highest point of their 
range under the equator. This inference is obvious, and, generally 
speaking, correct; though it is liable to certain modifications, and to 
some anomalies, of which the following arc the most remarkable. 

* On heat and electricity, p. 129. 



LIMITS OF PERPETUAL SNOW; GLACIERS. 135 

Under the equator the limits of perpetual snow are the most fixed 
and steady, and seem to exist generally at an altitude of between 
15,000 and 10,000 feet. As we recede from the equator, the oscil- 
lations for the most part become more striking, and all the pheno- 
mena assume a more irregular form. Such, for example, is the case 
in the Mexican Cordilleras; but still more evidently in the Himmala 
range, where there is a difference of no less than 4000 feet between 
the limits of perpetual snow on the northern and on the southern 
sides of the mountain, that on the northern being the highest. As 
we proceed towards the temperate zones, we find, in mountainous 
countries, below the limits of perpetual snow, immense bodies of ice, 
or glaciers, as they are termed. These glaciers are formed by the 
alternate melting and congealing of the extensive beds of snow that 
lie above them. The glaciers, accumulating in valleys, are often by 
the enormous and increasing weight of the snow and ice in the 
upper parts, pressed downwards far beyond the limits of the snow 
itself. Such are the glaciers of Switzerland, of Norway, and of 
other countries in temperate climates. All these circumstances, 
with others that might be mentioned, and many probably that are 
unknown to us, combine to render the limits of perpetual snow irre- 
gular. These irregularities are so great, that Humboldt has given 
as a mean of many observations, that at the equator the limits of 
perpetual snow are nearly 3° above the freezing point, while in the 
temperate zone they are nearly 5° below that point, and in the frigid 
zone no less than 10° or 11° below freezing; which observations 
seem to prove that the general temperature of the air decreases in 
the equatorial, otherwise than in the colder regions. From the pe- 
culiar distribution of the land ftr^the southern hemisphere, little is 
known of the line of perpetual snow in that part of the world ; but 
it will probably be found to be different from that in the north, and 
generally lower. 

The perpetual snow resting on the tops of mountains constitutes a 
most important provision in the economy of nature, particularly in 
the warmer climates, where the accumulated snow becomes the 
prolific source of innumerable rivers without which these regions 
would be uninhabitable. 

There is a striking difference between the elevated and the lower 
regions, which must have considerable influence upon organization, 
though this influence has not been studied so carefully as it ought to 
be; viz., the difference of atmospheric pressure. At the surface of 
the earth, the atmospheric pressure is nearly the same in all latitudes, 
but as we ascend above the surface, the pressure rapidly diminishes. 
Everything else, therefore, being supposed to be the same, the differ- 
ence of pressure is probably alone sufficient materially to influence 
organization, and to render certain provisions and accommodations 
necessary, of which, at present, we are ignorant ; but which might 



136 METEOROLOGY. 

be doubtless much elucidated by a careful study of Alpine plants and 
animals, as compared with those that occupy the plains. 

Of the Distribution of Heat and Light through the Atmosphere in 
their latent and decomposed Forms. — In the preceding paragraphs 
we have alluded to the quantity of heat existing latent in the higher 
regions of the atmosphere. But besides this quantity, which may be 
supposed to be common in the whole atmosphere, the distribution of 
latent heat and light must in some degree follow the same law as 
that of sensible heat and light ; that is, must decrease from the equator 
toward the poles. Thus there can be no doubt, that the expanded air 
of the equatorial regions contains much more heat and light in the 
latent state, than the comparatively dense and dry atmospheric air 
of the Polar regions ; and it is probable that the rigours of each ex- 
treme are mitigated by this provision. The distribution of electri- 
city through the atmosphere seems also to be regulated by very 
similar laws. It may, however, be remarked that the effects of heat 
and light, in the latent and decomposed forms, are much more strik- 
ing as connected with the water in the atmosphere, than with the 
constituents of the atmosphere itself. We shall, therefore, defer 
what we have to say on those subjects till we speak of the water in 
the atmosphere. 

Of the Propagation of Sensible Heat through the Atmosphere. — As 
the diffusion of gaseous bodies through each other is so far a mecha- 
nical process that it is regulated solely by the relations of their spe- 
cific gravities, it follows that under the same pressure, different por- 
tions of the same gas, having different temperatures, and conse- 
quently different specific gravities, will have a similar tendency to 
diffusion. Hence, independently of all other circumstances, the 
warm and light air of the equatorial regions has a natural tendency 
to diffuse itself toward the poles ; while the colder and heavier air 
of the poles possesses a similar tendency to diffuse itself towards the 
equator, though in a greatly mitigated degree. The exact amount 
of these tendencies we have no means of estimating, but they, doubt- 
less, exert considerable influence; and, as the diffusive power may 
happen to coincide with, or oppose the atmospheric currents, to be 
next considered, it may augment or diminish their effects. 

Though diffusion be thus largely concerned in the lateral propa- 
gation of temperature through the atmosphere, this propagation is 
evidently affected to a much greater extent by the process termed 
convection. Convection, like diffusion, of course, implies motion or 
currents; which currents as existing in the atmosphere, we need 
scarcely observe, are denominated Winds. The winds, therefore, 
arc of the utmost importance in the economy of nature, as tending 
to equalize the distribution of temperature over the globe: and the 
following brief explanation will serve to give a genera] knowle 
of their nature. 

Atmospheric currents may be considered under two heads: those 



PROPAGATION OF HEAT IN THE ATMOSPHERE. 137 

of a general kina\ and which extend more or less over the whole 
globe ; and those depending upon various transient derangements of 
the distribution of temperature, the effects of which are limited to 
particular localities. On each of these we shall make a few re- 
marks* 

The general currents of the atmosphere depend principally upon 
the two following circumstances, which, if borne in mind by the 
reader, will furnish him with a clue to the whole subject : viz., the 
unequal temperature of the equator and of the poles ; and the diur- 
nal motion of the earth upon its axis. The convective operation of 
the first of these general causes may be thus illustrated. We have 
stated that the entire pressure of the atmosphere all over the earth's 
surface is nearly the same, and equal to that of a column of mercury 
about thirty inches in height. We have also stated that the mean 
temperature of this atmosphere near the equator, and at the level of 
the sea is upwards of 80°, while in the Polar regions it is constantly 
below 32°, the freezing point of water. Hence, as air expands by 
heat, and becomes specifically lighter, it is obvious that a given bulk 
of air at the level of the sea round the poles, must be considerably 
heavier than a similar bulk of air at the level of the sea under the 
equator. The air, therefore, round the poles being colder and hea- 
vier, will have a tendency to flow along the earth's surface from the 
poles towards the equator, and to displace the lighter air under the 
equator; while the equatorial air so displaced, will, owing to its 
lightness, ascend and flow back again over the colder air, north and 
south toward the poles, so as to preserve the equilibrium. More- 
over these currents will be perpetual ; for the heat of the equator 
and the cold of the poles being constant, the same tendency to change 
will always exist, and thus the currents will be constant likewise. 

These atmospheric currents constitute one primary element of the 
winds, and are the grand means by which the equalization of tem- 
perature over the globe is effected. If the earth were at rest, and 
its surface free from irregularity, these currents or winds would, of 
course, be in the northern hemisphere always due north, and in the 
southern hemisphere due south ; while the velocity would in each 
case gradually diminish from the poles towards the equator, where 
there would be a perpetual calm. 

But the earth is in a constant state of motion upon its axis from 
west to east, by which motion the currents are deflected from their 
northern and southern course towards the east; and this eastern de- 
flection constitutes the other primary element of the winds to be 
next considered. 

On the surface of a globe revolving like the earth on its axis, the 
general reader will bear in mind that the motion of any given point 
at the equator is the greatest, and at the poles the least possible. 
Thus while the poles are quiescent, the velocity of any given place 
at the equator of our earth, is about 1000 miles an hour; from which 

12* 



138 METEOROLOGY. 

extreme, the velocity gradually diminishes toward the poles. This 
motion of the earth on its axjs operates in the production of an 
easterly current in the atmosphere as follows. Supposing there 
were no atmospheric currents from the north and south towards the 
equator, and that the earth revolved upon its axis as at present, one 
of two things must happen. Either the earth during its revolution 
would carry with it the incumbent atmosphere; in which case there 
would be a perpetual calm over its surface : or the earth would re- 
volve within the atmosphere, leaving, as it were, the atmosphere be- 
hind it; in which case there would be an apparent current or wind 
over the whole of the earth's surface, in a direction opposite to that 
of the earth's motion, that is from east to west; which wind, sup- 
posing the atmosphere did not move with the earth, would, of course, 
be at its maximum at the equator. Now both these causes are con- 
tinually operating, and give origin to all the variety of the eastern 
currents upon the earth's surface, which, with the northern and 
southern currents, before described, conspire to produce the well 
known currents called the trade winds. Before we attempt to ex- 
plain the trade winds, their phenomena may be thus briefly de- 
scribed. 

The trade winds in the Atlantic ocean extend to about 28° on each 
side of the equator. At their extreme northern and southern bound- 
aries these winds generally blow from the east; but as they proceed 
towards the equator from the north and from the south, they gradu- 
ally pass from the east through all the intermediate points of the 
compass, till near the equator they become in the northern hemi- 
sphere, due north, and in the southern hemisphere due south. The 
trade winds are subject to some slight variations chiefly arising from 
the position of the earth with respect to the sun. On these varia- 
tions we do not think it necessary to enlarge. The general pheno- 
mena are as we have stated them, and they, upon the principles ad- 
vanced, appear to admit of the following explanation: 

In the temperate regions of the earth the winds seem to obey no 
certain laws ; at least laws so determinate as those of the trade 
winds. But about the tropics, both in the northern and in the 
southern hemispheres, the operation of the double currents and mo- 
tions before described, becomes distinctly perceptible. Thus about 
the tropics, the surface of the earth begins to move faster than the 
incumbent atmosphere; and hence in these regions, the prevailing 
currents are from the east. Indeed near the tropics the currents are 
nearly due east, principally on account of the great and somewhat 
sudden change of temperature produced by the verticil 1 sun of the 
tropical regions; which may be supposed to interfere with, and per- 
haps to cheek momentarily, the regular progress of the great 
northern and southern currents. As we proceed, however towards 
the equator, in both hemispheres, the atmosphere gradually acquires 
the velocity of the earth, while the intensity of the eastern current 



CURRENTS IN THE ATMOSPHERE. 139 

diminishes in the same proportion, and at length entirely disappears. 
At the same time the currents from the north and the south con- 
tinuing, slowly deflect the currents, from the east towards the north 
in the northern hemisphere, and from the east towards the south in 
the southern hemisphere, till left alone by themselves the polar cur- 
rents proceed onward to the equator, as if the motion of the earth 
had no existence. 

The first clear and satisfactory theory of the great atmospheric 
currents or winds was given, we believe, by Mr. Daniell. The 
theory of the winds was subsequently illustrated by Captain Basil 
Hall, in his interesting essay on the trade winds, to which for details 
we must refer the reader.* Before we quit this subject we may re- 
mark that Mr. Daniell traces to these great currents the fluctuations of 
the barometer, and all the innumerable modifications peculiar to dif- 
ferent localities of sea and land, of mountain and plain. For, as he 
justly observes, in the nicely balanced state of the forces producing 
these currents, slight irregularities of temperature are capable of 
causing great disturbances ; and expansions and contractions acting 
unequally upon the antagonist currents, operate by deranging the 
adjustment of their several velocities. Hence accumulations in 
some parts, and corresponding deficiencies in others, necessarily 
arise ; and occasion fluctuations in the barometer, far surpassing 
what would be occasioned by the whole vapour, supposing it were 
at once added or annihilated. At the same time these irregular dis- 
tributions, in seeking to regain the proper level, and in struggling to 
restore the equilibrium, produce temporary and variable winds, which 
modify the regular currents and often reverse their courses, par- 
ticularly in the temperate regions ; where, as formerly mentioned, 
the alternations of temperature, and the fluctuations of the barometer, 
are the most remarkable. 

Such are the elements of the general currents pervading our 
atmosphere, and such the modes in which these currents obviate ex- 
treme temperatures and their consequences. The same causes are 
constantly operating in different forms and degrees, so as to produce 
all the infinite variety among the winds, which we observe in nature. 
These are so numerous and diversified, as actually to baffle all 
attempts at explanation or arrangement; we shall therefore content 
ourselves with one instance only, by way of illustration, viz., the sea 
and land breezes. 

The explanation of what are denominated the sea and land 
breezes is very obvious, and is not less applicable to many similar 
phenomena. During the day, the surface of the land acquiring 
heat, imparts its temperature to the incumbent air. This air ex- 
panding in bulk becomes specifically lighter, and rises in conse- 

* See Meteorological Essays and Observations, by J. F. Daniell, Esq., Professor 
of Chemistry in King's College, &.C., page 465, second edition. 



140 METEOROLOGY. 

quence ; while the cooler air from the surrounding sea rushes in to 
supply its place, and thus produces the current called the sea breeze. 
During the night, on the contrary, the waters of the ocean part 
with their heat much more slowly than the land, and the reverse ac- 
tion, or the land breeze takes place. In hot climates near the sea- 
shore, and in insular situations, thes3 alternations constitute a most 
agreeable variety. 

2. Of the Presence of Water in the Atmosphere. — In the foregoing 
section we have endeavoured to give an outline of the beautiful 
provisions that have been adopted to prevent, by means of the air of 
the atmosphere, the consequences necessarily arising from the une- 
qual distribution of heat and light over the globe. We now come 
to another subject of not less importance, viz., the j henomena de- 
pending upon the existence of water in the atmosphere, and which, 
taken together, principally constitute what we emphatically denomi- 
nate the Weather. 

Of the Relations of the Water in the Atmosphere to Tempera- 
ture. — We have before stated the fact, that water has a tendency to 
assume the elastic form at all temperatures. From the tendency of 
water, thus to rise " above the Firmament," not only the ocean, but 
ice and snow, are unceasingly contributing their supply of moisture 
to the air; and this important fluid, so indispensable to vegetable 
and animal existence, is distributed over the surface of the whole 
earth. In considering, therefore the relations of the water of the 
atmosphere to temperature, the phenomena which first claim our 
attention, are the processes by which water is taken up and again 
separated from the atmosphere; that is to say, the processes of 
Evaporation and Condensation. 

In treating of the nature of Evaporation, the questions to be an- 
swered at the outset are, — Why is moisture present in the atmo- 
sphere? By what force is its presence determined, and its quantity 
limited 1 The reply to these questions depends upon the properties 
of matter in general, and of vapour in particular, as formerly de- 
scribed ; which, if the reader bears in mind, will enable him readily 
to understand what follows. 

When water is exposed to the air in an open vessel, the molecules 
of its uppermost or superficial stratum, being released from the in- 
fluence of those below them, have a natural tendency to assume that 
degree of polarity which is appropriate to their temperature. Hence, 
after acquiring the latent heat necessary to produce this polarity, 
cither at the expense of a portion of their own sensible heat, or that 
of the atmosphere, the superficial molecules of water become self- 
repulsive, and fly off into space in the form of vapour. If the space 
over the water be circumscribed and be a vacuum, the molecules 
fly off with such rapidity as instantaneously to till it. But, it the 
space be occupied by air, or be <A' indefinite magnitude, the mole- 
cules fly oil' more slowly, so as gradually to diffuse themselves 



EVAPORATION AND CONDENSATION. 141 

through the whole space ; quite on the same principle, and in the 
same manner, that one gaseous body is diffused through another. 

Such, in few words, may be deemed a simple statement of what 
evaporation is. We shall next proceed to inquire into the nature 
and operation of the means by which evaporation not only takes 
place, but is limited within certain boundaries. 

In a former chapter, we remarked, that the elastic force exerted 
by all bodies in the gaseous state bears a certain relation to their 
temperature, but that the degree of this elastic force varies according 
to other circumstances ; particularly according to whether the gase- 
ous body, at the given temperature, be capable of existing in the 
fluid or in the solid states, as well as in the gaseous state. Thus, 
atmospheric air, at the temperature of 32° (and indeed at- all known 
temperatures), is a gaseous body, and, under ordinary circumstances, 
exerts an elastic force equal to the weight of a column of mer- 
cury 30 inches high ; whereas, at the same temperature of 32°, water 
is a solid, and the force of the elasticity of its vapour is not more 
than equal to about l-5th of an inch of mercury. But at, and above 
212°, its boiling point, water, under ordinary circumstances, can 
exist only as a gas; and in this gaseous form, and at the tempera- 
ture of 212°, water obeys precisely the same laws, and exerts the 
same elastic force as atmospheric air would do under similar cir- 
cumstances. Hence, it will be readily understood, that the law of 
the elastic force of vapour below 212°, is very different from the law 
of that force above 212°; as by experiment is found to be the fact. 

From the preceding remarks it will appear that, all other things 
being the same, the tendency of water to assume the form of vapour, 
or the rate of its evaporation, as well as the actual quantity of water 
in the state of vapour in the atmosphere, will increase as the tempe- 
rature increases. The exact law of this increase, in all its details, 
we need not state. It is sufficient for our purpose to observe, that 
at all temperatures below the boiling point of water, that is to say, 
at all common atmospheric temperatures, while the rate of the in- 
crease of temperature issloio and uniform, or in an arithmetical pro- 
gression, the corresponding rate of the elastic force of vapour, by 
which the quantity of water as vapour is determined, increases 
much more rapidly, or nearly in a geometrical progression. This 
important fact is connected with several most interesting circum- 
stances. 

The phenomena of the Condensation of vapour from the atmo- 
sphere, are next to be explained. As the quantity of water in solution 
in the atmosphere can never be greater, though it may be less, than 
the quantity proper to the temperature ; when vapour (or what is 
the same thing, when a portion of air saturated with vapour), at any 
given temperature, is cooled below the point of saturation ; a por- 
tion of the vapour is separated in the form of fluid water, while the 
remainder assumes the elastic condition proper to the newly ac- 



142 METEOROLOGY. 

quired and diminished temperature. The forms assumed by the 
water so separated are various, and depend very much upon the 
quantity separated, and on the separation taking place in atmospheric 
air. When the quantity of water separated is small, the minute de- 
tached particles diffused through a large space, are suspended in the 
atmosphere by its buoyancy, and assume the form of what, for the 
sake of distinction, we shall call Visible Vapour, viz. mists, clouds, 
&c. When the quantity separated is greater, the particles collect 
into drops too large to be upheld by atmospheric buoyancy, and 
they fall to the earth in the shape of rain, hail, &c. 

Of the two great processes of evaporation and condensation, it 
may be further remarked, that by a beautiful provision, they have a 
constant tendency to limit each its own operations ,- evaporation is 
increased by heat and produces cold : condensation is produced by 
cold and liberates heat. Moreover, in virtue of another wonderful 
arrangement, by evaporation, water is separated entirely from all 
foreign bodies, and is thus condensed in a state of absolute purity. 

We now come more particularly to consider the subject of the 
vapour of the atmosphere. To facilitate the understanding of this, 
we shall, in the first place, suppose the air to be absent, and shall 
inquire what would be the conditions of an atmosphere of vapour, 
under the pressure and temperature existing at the surface of the 
earth, and at different heights above the earth's surface. 

As the elastic force of vapour increases faster than the tempera- 
ture of the vapour ; and as the mean temperature at the Equator is, 
at least, 80°, and that at the Poles below 32° ; it follows, that in an 
atmosphere of vapour, heated similarly to that of our earth, the spe- 
cific gravity of the vapour at the Equator, would greatly exceed the 
specific gravity of the vapour at the Poles. Vapour thus exhibits a 
condition directly opposite to that of air, under the same circum- 
stances. Hence the tendencies of the currents, and of diffusion, in 
an atmosphere of vapour, at the surface of the earth, would be pre- 
cisely the reverse of those in an atmosphere of air ; the tendency of 
the currents would be from the Equator towards the Poles, while 
the tendency of diffusion would be from the Poles toward the 
Equator.* 

We have elsewhere stated the law of the decrease of the tempe- 
rature of the atmosphere, observed in ascending from the surface of 
the earth ; the atmospheric air being supposed to be free from mois- 

• AVe may here observe, once for all, that our former remarks on the diffusion 
of air of different temperatures, and our remarks now on the similar diffusion of 
vapour, arc inferences only from the general law of diffusion ; and that the diffusion 
of such fluids has not, at least in so far as we know, been yet the subject of experi- 
ment. We do not, therefore, think it necessary to dwell on the precise law of this 
diffusion. Our remarks have been chiefly made with the view of drawing the 
attention of philosophers toward these interesting phenomena, The diffusion of 

RBJes and of vapour, taken in conjunction with the diffusion or radiation oC impon- 
derable matters, would form a noble field to those competent for such ph} do*) 
inquiry. 



ATMOSPHERE OF VAPOUR. 143 

ture. A similar law would regulate the decrease of temperature in 
an atmosphere of vapour ; but the rate of decrease would be much 
more slow than in an atmosphere of perfectly dry air. Thus under 
the Equator, where, at the level of the sea, the mean temperature is 
at least 80, the temperature of an atmosphere of perfectly dry air 
would sink to the freezing point at a height of 15,000 feet; while 
the temperature of an atmosphere of vapour would at the same 
height, sink only to 70°. At all the parallels of lower mean tempe- 
rature, onward to the lowest round the Poles, at any height above 
the level of the sea, similar differences would exist between the tem- 
perature of an atmosphere of perfectly dry air and the temperature 
of an atmosphere of vapour ; these differences, of course, varying 
with the mean surface temperature. At the same time, throughout 
the whole range, from the Equator to the Poles, the specific gravity 
of the vapour at the level of the sea would always exceed its specific 
gravity at any height above. Hence, in an atmosphere of vapour, 
there would be no vertical currents ; but there would be a strong 
tendency to diffusion from above downwards ; while the tendency 
to lateral diffusion, would, at all heights, be nearly the same as at 
the surface, or would be quite contrary to what would hold in an 
atmosphere of perfectly dry air. 

Having thus stated the leading properties of an atmosphere of air 

and of an atmosphere of vapour separately, we come to the proper 

subject of our inquiry; viz., the condition of an atmosphere resulting 

from a mixture of air and vapour — of such an atmosphere, indeed, 

as that in which we actually live. 

The reader will have no difficulty in understanding the nature of 
a mixed atmosphere, provided he has clearly apprehended what has 
been above stated, regarding the simple atmospheres which are its 
components, and will advert to two other circumstances that are 
now to be noticed. These two circumstances are intimately con- 
nected with the principles previously stated, and with each other; 
and an exposition of them is absolutely necessary for obtaining a 
true knowledge of the relations of an atmosphere of vapour with an 
atmosphere of air. These circumstances have not been mentioned 
sooner, the consideration of them having been intentionally delayed, 
in order that their influence might be seen, where their application 
is more immediately requisite. They are as follow. 

When vapour and air are mixed together, the resulting volume 
of the mixture depends on the amount of the elastic forces of the va- 
pour and of the air; not on any relation between their volumes. 
Thus when a cubic foot of air at the temperature of 32°, and exert- 
ing an elastic force equal to 30 inches of mercury, is mixed with a 
cubit foot of vapour, having the same temperature, and exerting an 
elastic force equal to only l-5th of an inch of mercury ; the volume 
of the mixture resulting is not two cubit feet, but only 1.0066 foot. 
Hence, as the addition of vapour to air adds comparatively little to 



144 METEOROLOGY. 

the bulk of the air, and consequently diminishes only in a trifling 
degree its specific gravity; the great aerial currents formerly de- 
scribed as pervading the atmosphere, are scarcely affected by the 
vapour they contain. 

When two portions of vapour, having different temperatures, are 
mingled together; or when a portion of vapour is brought into a state 
of mixture or contact, with a portion of water, or with any other 
body colder than the vapour ; the resulting mean temperature, what- 
ever that may be, is, in both cases, the temperature which regulates 
the elastic force of the mixture. Now, since the elastic force of 
vapour increases most rapidly from the temperature of 32° to 212°, 
the increase being in a geometrical progression, while the increase 
of the temperature is in an arithmetical progression ; it follows, that 
when two portions of vapour of equal bulk but of different tempera- 
tures, are mixed together ; or when a portion of vapour is brought 
into contact with any solid colder body ; the resulting mean tempe- 
rature is always below that requisite to preserve the water in a state 
of vapour. Hence, such mixture or contact is always followed by 
a portion of the vapour being condensed into water. In a future 
part of this section, it will be necessary to illustrate further this im- 
portant fact, but a familiar instance may be noticed here. Let us 
suppose that a pound of water at the temperature of 212°, which 
being in a state of steam, would occupy a space of about 27 cubit 
feet, were suddenly brought into mixture with a pound of water at 
the temperature of 32°: the effect would be an instantaneous con- 
densation of the greater part of the steam into water. For the re- 
sulting mean temperature would obviously be far short of 212°, be- 
low which temperature the elastic force of vapour most rapidly di- 
minishes. On this property of vapour depends the working of the 
common steam-engine. 

The reader is thus at length prepared to enter on the complicated 
subject of a mixed atmosphere of vapour and of air. 

We have shown that the rate of decrease of the temperature of 
an atmosphere of vapour, in ascending from the earth's surface, 
would be very much slower than that of an atmosphere of air. 
Now since, at all temperatures, the existence of atmospheric air is 
permanent ; while the very existence of vapour is dependent on 
temperature ; it follows, that in a mixed atmosphere of vapour and 
of air, the quantity of vapour contained in the mixture is regulated 
solely by the temperature of the air: that is to say, the quantity o\ 
vapour present in an aerial atmosphere, can never exceed, though it 
may be less than, the quantity which is proper to the temperature of 
the air. If the quantity of vapour in such a mixed atmosphere, be 
precisely the quantity that is proper to the temperature o\ the air, 
such an atmosphere is said to be saturated with vapour. 

But, neither at the earth's surface, nor at any height above it. can 
the degree of saturation of a mixed atmosphere o\ air and vapour, 



MIXED ATMOSPHERE OF VAPOUR AND AIR. 145 

be quite equal to that which is proper to the temperature of the air ; 
and the difference between these two degrees of saturation, aug- 
ments from above downwards. The cause of this difference may- 
be thus explained. The rate of increase of the temperature of air, 
from above downward, being in arithmetical progression, and the 
air being, in a mixed atmosphere, that ingredient which controls the 
whole mixture ; the rate of increase of the tension of the vapour, 
instead of following the geometrical rate which belongs to it as va- 
pour, is obliged to conform to the arithmetical rate of increase of 
the temperature of the air. The result of this controlment neces- 
sarily is, that the quantity of vapour present in a mixed atmosphere 
will, at any successive diminution of the height above the surface of 
the earth, become successively less and less than that which would 
be required to saturate the air. An example will make this result 
evident. 

At the Equator, as we have said, the temperature of the air, at 
the height of about 15,000 feet above the level of the sea, is nearly 
32°. Now, for the sake of illustration, let us suppose this air to be 
saturated with vapour. From Dr. Dalton's table of the tension or 
elastic forces of vapour at different temperatures, it appears that 
the tension of vapour at 32° is equal to the weight of .200 inch of 
mercury ; and that the difference between the tension of vapour at 
32° and the tension of vapour at 33°, that is to say, the value of the 
first term or unit, in our assumed arithmetical series is .007 inch of 
mercury. Now, the difference between 32° and 80° the mean tem- 
perature at the level of the sea under the Equator, is 48°; and sup- 
posing each of these 48 degrees to increase in an arithmetical pro- 
gression, .007 for each degree, the tension for the whole 48 degrees 
will amount to .336, which added to .200, the tension at 32° gives 
the tension of .536 inch, as that corresponding to the vapour at 80°, 
the temperature of the earth's surface under the Equator. But, by 
Dr. Dalton's same table of tensions, we find that .536 does not re- 
present the proper tension of vapour at 80°, but of vapour at about 
61° only. According to this estimate it follows, that at the Equator, 
while the temperature of the air over the earth's surface is 80°, the 
point of saturation with vapour is 19° below that temperature. 
Hence, at the Equator, the air immediately incumbent on the earth's 
surface must be comparatively very dry. Moreover the cause 
which has been thus shown to produce the dryness of the Equatorial 
air, at the earth's surface, must all over the globe exert different de- 
grees of the same influence. The air, everywhere incumbent on the 
earth's surface, must, therefore, always be under the point of satura- 
tion ; — the relative degree of dryness being highest under the Equa- 
tor, and gradually diminishing as we recede north or south towards 
the Poles.* 

•The mathematical reader will observe, that the quantities given in the text are 
not rigidly accurate, but are intended only for familiar illustration of the principles 

13 



146 METEOROLOGY. 

In such a mixed atmosphere as we have supposed, and as in reality- 
surrounds our globe, if its equilibrium be undisturbed, and if it be at 
rest; the vapour it contains will have nearly the same tendencies to 
motion and to diffusion that would exist in such an atmosphere of 
pure vapour, as we have formerly described. But from the more 
equal distribution of vapour, when mingled with air, the contrasts 
between the specific gravities of different portions of vapour, in 
different parts of the atmosphere, will be much less striking than if 
the atmosphere consisted of vapour alone. Consequently, the rates 
of motion and of diffusion, which depend upon such differences of 
specific gravity, will be less remarkable in a mixed atmosphere, 
even though saturated with vapour, than they would be in a purely 
aqueous atmosphere ; while in an unsaturated atmosphere the mo- 
tions of the vapour must be still more liable to be influenced by the 
motions of the air, than they would be in an atmosphere of air, at 
its utmost point of saturation. 

Before we close this part of our subject let us reflect for a mo- 
ment upon the consequences of such a state of comparative dryness 
of the lower atmosphere next the earth. Over the greater portion 
of the earth, the air which, during the day at least, is warmed by 
contact with the earth's surface, and thus becomes lighter, has, as 
we have observed, a constant tendency to rise into the higher atmo- 
sphere. Now, if this air were saturated with vapour, of course, 
whenever the air by rising became mixed with colder air, its va- 
pour would be more or less condensed, and a cloud would be 
formed. Hence, if we lived in such an atmosphere, we should be 
always enveloped in a mist, through which the sun would not be 
visible. But, by the benevolent arrangement we enjoy, this conse- 
quence is so entirely prevented, that, unless under peculiar circum- 
stances, and always for beneficial purposes, the air at the earth's 
surface is hardly ever saturated with moisture. The air that has 
been warmed by contact with the eartli can, therefore, rise from 
the surface, without any condensation of its nature within the limits 
of its point of saturation. Thus, at the Equator, before the air 
reaches the temperature of 61°, the presumed point of its saturation, it 
must ascend to the height of 6000 or 7000 feet. At this height its 
vapour will be condensed, and a cloud will be formed; which may 
either be precipitated on the spot from which its constituent vapour 
had risen, or may be transported by the currents of the atmosphere. 
similarly to refresh a distant country, or may be again dissolved in 
the air; while under all these contingencies the whole of the lower 
part of the atmosphere is exempt from mist, and continues perfectly 

regulating moisture. The truth is, as has been noticed in the text, in no part of a 
vertical column of a mixed atmosphere, in a condition of equilibrium and at rest, 
can the air be in a state of saturation. It has been rrmarkid, that the degree of 
Katuration often continues nearly uniform up to a certain point, and then suddenly 
decreases. 



MIXED ATMOSPHERE OF VAPOUR AND AIR. 147 

transparent. These operations are unceasingly carried on in our 
atmosphere, over the whole surface of the earth. Moreover, the 
very clouds, by giving out their latent heat, and shielding the earth's 
surface from the direct influence of the sun, produce a still further 
effect, and have a constant tendency to modify their own formation 
and existence. 

The general result of all the complicated and beautiful machinery 
connected with the movement of vapour is, that water is incessantly 
raised into the higher parts of the atmosphere, where it is again 
condensed in the form of rain, &c. over the whole earth. We have, 
therefore, in the next place to examine a little more in detail the 
relations of these two great processes of evaporation and condensa- 
tion, as they are exhibited in nature. 

Of the general Relations of Evaporation and Condensation. — 
The first point in the inquiry that naturally claims our attention, are 
the mechanical motions by which the relations between evaporation 
and condensation are maintained. 

The motions of vapour, in a mixed atmosphere of vapour and 
air, may be considered as of three kinds: those motions arising 
from convection, in which the vapour is carried along by the air ; 
those motions arising from the tendency of the vapour to recover its 
dynamical (and thermal) equilibrium, when that equilibrium has been 
disturbed, and which motions we shall, for distinction, term the pro- 
per motions of the vapour ; and those motions of vapour which are 
caused by diffusion. 

In a mixed atmosphere of vapour and air, the motions of the va- 
pour, on the large scale of the operations of nature, are influenced, 
no doubt, in a very great degree, by the motions of the air. For 
example, large masses, more or less saturated with vapour, in pro- 
portion to their respective temperatures, and having either vertical 
or lateral motion, must carry with them the vapour they contain, 
whether there be much or little vapour so contained. On the other 
hand, motions of the air, on a smaller scale, as we shall presently 
see, may be even caused — may certainly be accelerated or retarded, 
according as the proper motion of the vapour, to be next considered, 
may agree with, or may be opposed to, these motions of the air. 
When once, however, the vapour in the atmosphere has been sepa- 
rated, and has assumed the form of visible vapour, its own proper 
powers of motion cease, and it becomes entirely subject to those of 
convection. Visible vapours, therefore, of all kinds, from their 
being liable to be wafted by every breeze, are in a constant state of 
motion, and are thus frequently carried where vapour, in virtue of 
its own tendency to motion, would never reach. 

In an atmosphere of vapour, when the temperature, and conse- 
quently the elasticity, of any portion is reduced ; the surrounding 
vapour, by virtue of its greater elastic force, continues to advance 
towards the cooler locality and to be there condensed until the ther- 



148 METEOROLOGY. 

mal equilibrium is restored. The motion thus arising, which de- 
pends upon its dynamical properties, constitutes what we have 
denominated the proper motion of vapour. In an atmosphere of va- 
pour this restoration of the dynamical equilibrium, upon which the 
thermal equilibrium also depends, would take place with so great 
rapidity, as to be almost instantaneous. But in a mixed atmosphere, 
the case is different. In such an atmosphere, the presence of the 
heavier and more abundant air modifies, in a remarkable degree, the 
rapid motion of the lighter and less abundant vapour. Hence, in- 
stead of a rush of vapour and a momentary deluge, the motions of 
the vapour take place slowly; and sudden evaporation and conden- 
sation, with their consequences, are effectually prevented. 

These tendencies to motion, in vapour of different temperatures, 
have, no doubt, great influence on the contiguous surfaces of large 
masses of air differently saturated ; and, in particular, are liable to 
affect smaller masses of air differently saturated, when they are in 
the immediate neighbourhood of each other. Thus, as we have al- 
ready noticed, the disturbance of the equilibrium of the vapour may 
be to such an extent, in some portion of the mixed atmosphere ; 
that the surrounding vapour, urged to move by its tendency to re- 
store the equilibrium, may occasionally be supposed to drag with it 
the air and the clouds, and thus produce local currents. For in- 
stance, let us imagine a mass of warm and almost perfectly dry 
air to be brought into the neighbourhood of another mass of air, 
of precisely the same temperature, but saturated with vapour. The 
two masses of air, from being of the same temperature, would, as 
air, have no tendency to intermingle. But as being portions of a 
mixed atmosphere of vapour and air, the dryer air would be, as it 
were, a vacuum, towards which the vapour from the moist air 
would have a tendency to flow till both masses of air became 
equally moist. In such a case, the motion of the vapour might be 
supposed to cause more or less of motion in the air, while a mo- 
mentary cloud would probably be formed ; which cloud would be 
dissipated when the equilibrium was restored. In this way, it is 
likely that many of the minor motions of the atmosphere are pro- 
duced.* 

The motions of vapour arising from its diffusive powers are quite 
distinct from those motions of vapour which are controlled by the 
motions of the air, or by the dynamical tendencies of the vapour 
itself to recover its condition of thermal equilibrium. These diffusive 
motions of vapour, as formerly observed, depend on differences 
between the specific gravities (the absolute quantities of matter) of 
contiguous and communicating gases, under the same circumstances 
of pressure and temperature. Though the motions of vapour de- 
pending on diffusion may retard, ov be retarded by, the ether mo- 

* In :ill the cases given in the text, the effect of electricity i>\ fof thr sake of 

distinctness, kept out of view. 



MIXED ATMOSPHERE OF VAPOUR AND AIR. 149 

tions to which vapour is liable ; in general, there is reason to believe 
that the motions of vapour by diffusion, in their most decided form, 
surpass or take place independently of, all the other motions of 
vapour, and in this freedom from control, resemble the radiation of 
imponderable bodies. The laws which diffusion obey have been 
already stated, and need not be again repeated. These laws may be 
applied to the consideration of the diffusion of vapour in the follow- 
ing manner. 

The diffusive tendencies of an atmosphere of perfectly dry air, 
and of an atmosphere of vapour, would, as we have seen, at the 
earth's surface be in opposite directions ; the diffusive tendency in 
the aerial atmosphere being from the Equator toward the Poles, and 
that in the aqueous atmosphere being from the Poles towards the 
Equator. The vertical tendencies also of the two atmospheres 
would be very different. An atmosphere of perfectly dry air, in a 
state of thermal and dynamical equilibrium, would have no tendency 
to diffusion ; for the colder air in descending, and the warmer air in 
ascending, by change of bulk, acquire the temperature appropriate 
to the height. The effect of this change of bulk and acquisition of 
temperature is, as we have elsewhere stated, such, that if air from 
any height in the atmosphere were brought to the surface of the 
earth, it would have precisely the same temperature as the air 
already incumbent on the surface. But the case is different with 
vapour, even in the comparatively rare state in which it exists in a 
mixed atmosphere. We have seen that in an atmosphere of vapour, 
if the temperature at the surface of the earth were 80°, the tempera- 
ture at the height of 15,000 feet would be only 70°; while in an 
atmosphere of perfectly dry air, having a similar surface temperature 
of 80°, the temperature, at the same height of 15,000 from the sur- 
face, would be 32°. Now, as in a mixed atmosphere of vapour and 
air, the temperature of the air determines that of the vapour; if in 
such a mixed atmosphere, vapour having the temperature of 32°, 
were brought from the height of 15,000 feet to the surface, where 
the temperature is 80°; the temperature of the vapour would, by 
increased pressure and the consequent evolution of more latent heat, 
be increased only to about 42°; while, as we have seen, where the 
temperature of the surface is 80°, the point of saturation of the air 
with vapour is at least 61°. Hence the specific gravity of vapour 
from the height of 15,000 feet, when reduced to the same degree of 
pressure as that at the surface, is found to be much below the spe- 
cific gravity of that vapour which actually exists at the surface. 
Consequently, throughout a mixed atmosphere of vapour and air, 
there is a tendency to vertical diffusion, the predominant tendency 
being from above downwards. From the extreme tenuity of vapour 
in the higher regions of the atmosphere, and the great tendency 
thereof, which that vapour has to diffusion, it is probable that the 
diffusive motion of the vapour may occasionally have a velocity 

13* 



150 METEOROLOGY. 

approaching, as we have said, to that of radiant matter, itself. In 
this way the rare and cold molecules of water may be supposed to 
dart, or radiate, as it were, far into the warmer atmosphere before 
their velocity is arrested. Nay, in the Polar latitudes, the mole- 
cules of water, from the higher parts of the atmosphere, may even 
reach the earth's surface, by shooting, like rays of heat and light, 
directly through the air, without materially affecting its tempera- 
ture. 

After these general remarks on the motions of vapour, we shall 
now take a rapid view of the mutual relations of the two great pro- 
cesses of evaporation and condensation. 

We have already described the general phenomena of evaporation 
and condensation, and have stated the laws on which these pheno- 
mena depend. It will, therefore, in this place, be sufficient to remind 
the reader that the degree, and the rate, of evaporation though they 
increase with the temperature, are regulated chiefly by the existing 
degree of saturation of the air. That is to say, under all tempera- 
tures evaporation decreases, as the air that receives the vapour, ap- 
proaches its point of saturation. Hence it follows, that in an atmo- 
sphere perfectly saturated with moisture, and in a state of thermal 
and dynamical equilibrium, there can be neither evaporation nor 
condensation. The processes of evaporation and condensation, 
therefore, always indicate a disturbance of the thermal equilibrium 
in some part of the atmosphere : condensation denoting a depression 
of the temperature below the mean, or point of thermal equilibrium: 
evaporation, on the contrary, denoting that the temperature in some 
part of the atmosphere has been raised above the mean ; or at least 
that the temperature having been depressed below the mean, is again 
undergoing an elevation to the mean point. Evaporation and con- 
densation may be thus considered as mutually dependent; so that 
one process cannot take place without the other. For this reason, 
in the great expanse of nature, these two processes oscillate or fluc- 
tuate about the point of equilibrium, within certain limits which are 
never passed ; and which limits, though subject to countless anoma- 
lies, in general, decrease from the Equator toward the Poles. 

With respect to the temperature which constitutes the point of 
equilibrium ; in an atmosphere of vapour, that point would, of course, 
be the maximum point of saturation. But in a mixed atmosphere of 
vapour and air like that of our globe, the point of equilibrium can- 
not be the point of utmost saturation, but must be that inferior point 
of saturation formerly described, as being determined by the tempe- 
rature of the predominant air. Thus at the Equator, where the 
mean temperature at the level of the sea is about 80°, the moan point 
of saturation will, according to our former estimate, be 81° : while 
in London, where the mean annual temperature is about 4tt£°, the 
mean point of saturation, (or the dew point, as it is termed,) has bean 
fixed by Mr. Daniell at 44^°. In temperate climates, the mean point 



EVAPORATION AND CONDENSATION, MUTUAL. 151 

of saturation at any particular place, varies with the seasons from 
day to day, being higher in summer than in winter. During any 
shorter period, as that of a day and night, the mean point of satu- 
ration, as might be expected, generally bears a certain relation to 
the lowest degree to which the temperature has fallen during the 
period ; since the Hygrometer* shows that the degree of saturation, 
at any hour, is seldom below the point of saturation corresponding 
to the lowest temperature of the twenty-four hours ; at which point 
it continues nearly uniform, so that the point of saturation during 
the warmer parts of the day generally varies only a few degrees. 
The elevation and depression of the dew point in temperate climates 
is thus another, and unceasing cause of change, and produces a va- 
riety in evaporation and condensation so great as to baffle any at- 
tempt at accurate inquiry. 

From what has been said, it will appear that in a mixed atmo- 
sphere, the rate of evaporation and of condensation, other things 
being equal, will depend, not on the difference of the temperature of 
the air from the maximum point of saturation, but on the difference 
of the temperature of the air from that of the mean dew point ; that 
is to say, will increase or diminish as this difference increases. 

The accidental circumstances which principally operate to affect 
the rate of evaporation, are the greater or less extent of the evapo- 
rating surface, and the velocity and degree of saturation of the cur- 
rent of air over that surface. But besides these causes of variation, 
there are other circumstances which probably have great influence 
on evaporation ; some of which are to us of the utmost interest, as 
being brought more immediately in contact, as it were, with our ex- 
istence. The chief of these additional circumstances affecting eva- 
poration which we shall notice, are, Diffusion; — Circumstances in- 
cidental to the Water which undergoes evaporation ; and Circum- 
stances incidental to the Air into which the water is evaporated. 

By the general arrangement which we formerly considered, it ap- 
pears that evaporation and condensation diminish from the Equator, 
onward to the Poles. But since increased temperature, which is the 
cause of evaporation, predominates at the Equator; while diminished 
temperature, which is the cause of condensation, predominates at the 
Poles ; it may perhaps be inferred, that generally speaking, evapo- 
ration will be relatively greater at the Equator; and, on the other 
hand, that condensation will be relatively greater at the Poles. In 
an atmosphere of vapour such unequal effects could not indeed take 
place; from the rapid nature of the motions which would arise 
throughout the whole of such an atmosphere, so as instantaneously 

* The Hygrometer is an instrument for measuring- the degree of moisture of the 
atmosphere. That of Mr. Daniell is here alluded to, which is the only one that 
acts upon scientific principles. DanieWs hygrometer shows the degree of tempera- 
ture at which water is deposited from the atmosphere, and consequently its state 
of saturation. 



152 METEOROLOGY. 

to restore the equilibrium. But in a mixed atmosphere of vapour 
and air, the result would be different. If there were an excess of 
condensation at the Poles; before the corresponding evaporation 
could take place at the Equator, innumerable changes would be pro- 
duced in the atmosphere over all the other parts of the globe inter- 
vening between the Equator and the Poles. Further, we shall see 
presently that much more water is at all times condensed on the 
land, than is ever evaporated from the land. The excess that is 
condensed flows off in rivers in warm and temperate climates, and 
thus accumulation is prevented ; but in the Polar regions this outlet 
is cut off, and the superfluous water would be locked up in the shape 
of ice. From these circumstances, therefore, and from others that 
might be noticed, it is not unreasonable to suppose, that in the colder 
climates, other things being alike, and the arrangements which re- 
gulate vapour being alone considered, condensation of water would 
proceed much more rapidly than its evaporation ; and hence that 
around the Poles there would be a constant accumulation of water 
in the condition of ice. But we know that there is not any such 
accumulation, in those parts of the Polar regions which have been 
explored. It is manifest, therefore, that in these regions the energy 
of evaporation must be fully equal to that of condensation. It is 
indeed true, that evaporation goes on very rapidly from snow and 
ice. Thus Howard mentions an instance in the month of January, 
in a certain year, when the vapour, from a circular area of snow 
five inches in diameter, amounted to 150 grains between sunset and 
sunrise; and before the next evening, 50 grains more were added 
to the amount, the gauge having been exposed to a smart breeze on 
the housetop. Under like circumstances an acre of snow would, in 
the course of twenty-four hours, evaporate the enormous quantity of 
64,000,000 grains of moisture ! Even by the evaporation during the 
night only, a thousand gallons of water would, in that short time, be 
raised from an acre of snow. It may thus be easily understood 
how a moderate fall of snow may entirely vanish during a succeed- 
ing northerly gale, without the slightest perceptible liquefaction on 
the surface.* 

We have given this statement to satisfy the general reader of the 
fact, that evaporation is constantly going on from snow and ice. 
But the quantity, great as it appears, does not surpass, or even equal. 
what it might be supposed to be, on admitted principles. Whether, 
therefore, evaporation really takes place in a relatively greater de- 
gree in the Polar regions, so as to compensate for that portion of the 
condensed water which is there fixed as ice, but which in warmer 
climates flows off to the sea, in the form of rivers, remains to be 
proved; though, to preserve the equilibrium and to prevent Accumu- 
lations, some such supposition appears to be necessary. Can the 

• Article Meteorology in the Encyclopedia Metropolitan*. 



EVAPORATION AND CONDENSATION, MUTUAL. 153 

difficulty be solved by the aid of the principles of diffusion? Does 
not a portion of the attenuated vapour of the Polar latitudes diffuse 
itself, and penetrate from thence towards the Equator ; thus leaving 
the higher regions of the atmosphere in the Polar latitudes compa- 
ratively dry, and the lower portion of the atmosphere more apt for 
evaporation? And is not this diffusion of moisture from the Poles 
one of those beautiful expedients, which compensate for the inequa- 
lities of evaporation and condensation, and by which these inequali- 
ties are obviated ? 

The circumstances incidental to icater, and affecting evaporation 
and saturation, arise chiefly from its purity or impurity. The pre- 
sence of foreign bodies, as of saline matters, for instance, is well 
known to raise considerably the boiling point of water ; in other 
words, they lower its tendency to become vapour, and thus diminish 
its evaporating and saturating powers. Hence the air over the sea, 
though, of course, much nearer, in general, to the point of satura- 
tion appropriate to the latitude and temperature, than air over the 
land, is comparatively seldom in a state of perfect saturation ; and 
sea-water, so far from being capable of saturating the air with 
moisture, up to the dew point, has even the power of abstracting a 
portion of the moisture from an atmosphere so saturated, and of 
thus, to a certain extent, drying the air. 

Evaporation on land is precisely similar to evaporation from sea- 
water, since the various rocks and soils may be considered as so 
many saline matters, diminishing, in their several degrees, the ten- 
dency to become vapour possessed by the water united with them. 
Hence, under like circumstances, some rocks and soils are dry, 
while others are moist; so that, in proportion to the evaporating 
powers of the rocks and soil of a country, will that, country be liable 
to all the consequences of dryness or of dampness of soil. Plants 
also seem to differ much in their capacity for retaining water. The 
dryness of a country will, therefore, be considerably affected by the 
nature of its vegetation ; and the predominance of certain plants or 
trees in a district may thus increase the dampness of its soil. 

Regarding the effect that foreign matters in the atmosphere have 
in influencing evaporation from the subjacent land or water, we are 
unable to speak with as much confidence, as we have spoken of the 
controlling power of the foreign matters in the water itself. Many 
years ago, particular circumstances led us to form the opinion, that 
a combination of water and oxygen is a frequent, if not a constant, 
ingredient in the atmosphere. This ingredient, which we suppose 
to be a vapour, and analogous to (we do not say identical with) the 
deutoxide of hydrogen, may be the cause of numerous atmospheric 
phenomena, which at present are very little understood. Among 
such phenomena are those of evaporation we are now considering. 

The difficulties attending an investigation of the atmosphere, and 
more than all, the total want of opportunity, have rendered us una- 



154 METEOROLOGY. 

ble satisfactorily to verify the opinion we have advanced. We have 
stated the opinion as conjectural only, and in order that the atten- 
tion of those more fortunately situated may be drawn to so impor- 
tant an inquiry. 

When treating of the composition of atmospheric air, we ob- 
served that the best analyses almost invariably indicated a slight ex- 
cess of oxygen above the amount of 20 per cent., which there ought 
to be in the atmosphere, if its composition were, as there can be 
little doubt that it is, determined by the laws of chemical propor- 
tions. Now this excess of oxygen in the atmosphere, we have 
every reason to think, becomes periodically associated in some way 
with the vapour that is also in the atmosphere ; and thus not only 
modifies the properties of the vapour, but at the same time ma- 
terially influences the rate of evaporation from the earth's surface. 
This excess of oxygen may operate in the following manner. The 
vapour in union with oxygen (deutoxide of hydrogen 1) ceases, of 
course, to act as vapour ; hence in air saturated with vapour, and 
as moist as possible, if a portion of the vapour were suddenly to 
combine with oxygen, the air would as suddenly appear to become 
dry, though in reality it contained the same quantity of water in 
solution as before. Moreover the rate of evaporation would be in- 
creased by such a combination of vapour and oxygen ; for its effects, 
whatever these might be, would be superadded to the ordinary effects 
of evaporation, and would thus more or less increase the quantity of 
water converted into vapour. 

Oxygen in this state of combination with vapour seems to be 
particularly grateful, if not necessary to animal life. The air in 
which it abounds is dry, bracing, and exhilarating, while the pre- 
dominance of moisture, from its occasional and sudden abstraction, 
induces the opposite feeling of dulness and listlessness. It is proba- 
ble that some soils and situations are more favourable than others to 
its existence, and that places are more or less healthy according as it 
is present or absent. 

The oxygen and vapour in this combination are so feebly as- 
sociated that they appear to be separated by the slightest cause. 
Hence the results of every common analysis and examination of air 
are the same nearly as if such a state of combination did not exist. 
We may mention, however, as corroborative of our opinion, the 
bleaching qualities of dew and of the air itself, as also the large pro- 
portion of oxygen sometimes contained in snow water and in rain 
water; attention being at the same time directed to the well known 
bleaching qualities of the deutoxide of hydrogen. 

Much more might be said on this curious subject, especially re- 
garding its relation to the electricity of the atmosphere. Hut as our 
observations must be in some measure speculative we shall for the 
present desist. 

Of the actual Quantity of Water that is evaporated and con* 
densed over the Globe. — From th<> principles we have stated it will 



QUANTITY EVAFORATED AND CONDENSED. 155 

appear that the quantity of water evaporated and condensed over 
the globe may be supposed to vary with the mean temperature, and 
consequently with the latitude. But, from local or other causes, the 
quantity varies so much, even in the same place, in different years, 
that the exceptions are more numerous than the instances of the 
correctness of the rule. 

The following table, however, shows the general truth of the sup- 
position, and that the average quantity of rain diminishes from the 
Equator to the Poles. In fact, a much larger quantity of rain must 
fall in the Equatorial than in the Polar regions, as is sufficiently 
proved by the magnitude of the rivers within the Tropics ; for the 
size of the rivers of course depends on the quantity of the rain ; the 
rivers being the conduits along which a certain portion of the pre- 
cipitated water is borne to the sea. 

TABLE. 

Inches. 

Uleaborg ......-- 13.5 

Petersburg - - - - - - - 16, 17.5 

Paris ........ 19.9 

London - ------ »20.7, f22.2, +25 2 

Edinburgh ------- 22., 24.5, §26.4 

Mean of Carlsruhe, Manheim, Stuttgard, Wurtzburg, Augsburg, and 

Regensburg, (Schow) - - - ... 25.1 

Epping -...--.- 27.0 

Bristol -------- 29.2 

England (Dalton's mean) - - - - - - 31.3 

Liverpool -------- 34.1 

Manchester -------- 36.1 

Rome -------- 39.0 

Lancaster -- ------ 39.7 

Geneva ..._-... 42.6, 

Penzance -------- 44.7 

Kendal -------- 53.9 

Mean of twenty places in the lower valleys at the base of the Alps 58.5 

Great St. Bernard - - - - - - - 63.1 

Vera Cruz -------- 63.8 

Keswick -_.---.. 67.5 

Calcutta -------- 81.0 

Bombay ----- - - 82.0 

Ceylon -------- 84.3 

Adam's Peak, ditto ------- 100. 

Coast of Malabar ------- 123.5 

Leogane, St. Domingo - ------ 150. U 

In this table the names of the places to which it refers are ar- 
ranged progressively, according to the amount of rain that falls in 
each place; and though the progression exhibits great irregularities, 
yet the table fully establishes the general decrease of rain with the 
increase of distance from the Equator. 

* Dalton. f Daniell. \ Howard. § Adie. 

B From the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana. Art. Meteorology, p. 123. 



156 METEOROLOGY. 

Sir John Leslie has shown that if all the aqueous vapour which 
can at any time be held in solution by the whole atmosphere, were 
at once precipitated on the earth in the form of rain, it would not 
be more than five inches in depth : now as in the course of a year 
many times this quantity of rain falls from the atmosphere, its 
replenishment of course must depend upon evaporation ; of which 
evaporation we may thus infer the general amount. With respect 
to the quantity of rain that descends annually on the entire surface 
of the earth, we want the means of forming an estimate, though 
there is no proof that this quantity is subject to any material dif- 
ference. The distribution indeed, as we have seen, diminishes with 
the latitude, and varies according to numerous local peculiarities, to 
some of which we shall hereafter allude. Often also, no doubt for 
the wisest purposes, the same place is liable to considerable fluctua- 
tions in the annual amount of rain, or at least in the times of its pre- 
cipitation ; yet all these variations oscillate within certain limits, and 
scarcely affect the mean quantity proper to the place ; thus showing 
that the distribution of rain obeys the same laws that regulate the 
more general and fixed operations of nature. 

Of the whole water that is condensed upon the surface of the 
earth, a certain portion, of course, enters into the soil. The depth 
to which such water sinks is determined by the declivity of the sur- 
face, by the nature of the inferior strata, and by other circumstances; 
but, after a greater or less period, and range of circulation, it usually 
again makes its appearance in the open day, in the form of Springs. 
The conjunction of springs and the occasional addition of a portion 
of rain water, which is neither immediately absorbed by the soil, nor 
evaporated, constitute brooks and rivulets; these again uniting in 
their progress from the higher and interior parts of the countries 
where this water has been deposited, form the larger rivers, which, 
after dispensing innumerable benefits to the inhabitants of the plains 
in their course, finally discharge their superfluous waters into the 
ocean. As the origin of the superfluous water which flows from the 
rivers to the ocean is thus, unquestionably, derived from the vapour 
condensed in the interior of the countries where the rivers originate, 
it follows, that in every country where there are rivers, condensation 
must surpass evaporation. That is to say, a large proportion of 
water condensed on the land, must have been evaporated not from 
the land, but from the neighbouring ocean. 

The relative proportions of the water that is condensed, and of 
the water that is evaporated vary exceedingly in different countries. 
Such indeed is the amount and variety of the differences that it is 
impossible to estimate them; though it is probable than in the same 
country the proportions are nearly constant: or, at least, that there 
is a mean proportion about which the differences oscillate within 
trifling limits. In this country, Dr. Thomson has estimated that, 
taking the whole of Great Britain together, the mean fall of rain 



DEW. 157 

amounts in the course of a year to 36 inches, the dew being included, 
(which is considered to amount to about four inches) ; and that the 
quantity of water evaporated is about 32 inches. Consequently, the 
excess of four inches must be supposed to go to supply the springs 
and rivers; and as these four inches are thus not taken up again by 
evaporation from the land, they must be drawn from the seas that 
encircle our shores.* These estimates of the water that is condensed 
and evaporated in Great Britain can only be viewed as rude ap- 
proximations ; and, even admitting them to be correct, they could 
scarcely be applied with any advantage to an inquiry into the actual 
condensation and evaporation in other countries or climates, which 
in all instances must be determined by observation and experiment. 

Having spoken of the accidental circumstances which influence 
evaporation, we are now, in the last place, to treat of those acci- 
dental circumstances which influence condensation. 

The condensation of vapour from the atmosphere, as we have 
already stated, differs in some degree, according to the origin of that 
diminished temperature by which the condensation is produced. 
We shall, therefore, commence with the phenomena of the precipi- 
tation of moisture depending on the radiation of heat from the earth's 
surface ; the most remarkable of these phenomena are Dew, Hoar 
Frost, and certain forms of Mist. 

Of Dew. — The phenomena of dew w r ere first satisfactorily ex- 
plained by the late Dr. Wells, who showed by the most decisive 
experiments that, apparently, they were all owing to the effects of 
the radiation of heat from the earth's surface into space, during the 
absence of the sun. The reader is referred to Dr. Well's " Essay 
on Dew" for details. It is sufficient for our present purpose to ob- 
serve, that when the direct influence of the sun is removed in the 
evening, and the surface of the earth thus no longer continues to 
acquire heat ; at that instant, from the ceaseless activity of heat to 
maintain a state of equilibrium, the surface of the earth, being the 
warmer body, radiates a portion of its superfluous temperature into 
the surrounding space; and thus the air immediately in contact with 
the surface becomes cooled below the point of saturation, and gives 
off a portion of its water in the form of dew. 

We formerly stated that the radiating powers of bodies differ ex- 
ceedingly according to their composition, the nature of their surface, 
their colour, &c. These differences, of course, produce corre- 
sponding effects on the deposition of dew ; and, as beautifully de- 
monstrated by Dr. Wells, explain its greater or less deposition under 
certain circumstances, or its entire absence under others. Thus, 
what formerly appeared so extraordinary, viz. why in the self-same 

* On heat and electricity, p. 266. It is proper to observe, that this estimate 
differs considerably from a previous estimate of Dr. Dalton, who fixes the propor- 
tion of water as flowing off by the rivers, in England and Wales, at thirteen inches. 
It is probable that the truth lies somewhere between the two estimates. 

14 



158 METEOROLOGY. 

state of the atmosphere, &c. one portion of the earth's surface, or 
one portion of herbage, should be covered with dew, w r hile another 
in the immediate neighbourhood should remain dry, is no longer a 
mystery, but is perfectly explicable on the supposition of their dif- 
ferent radiating powers. 

The deposition of dew is always most abundant during calm and 
cloudless nights, and in situations freely exposed to the atmosphere. 
Whatever interferes in any way with the process of radiation, as 
might be expected, has a great effect on the deposition of dew. 
Hence the radiation of heat, and consequently the deposition of dew, 
is not only obviated by the slightest covering or shelter, as by thin 
matting, or even muslin; by the neighbourhood of buildings, and in- 
numerable other impediments, near the earth's surface; but matters 
interposed at a great distance from the earth's surface have precisely 
the same effect. Thus clouds effectually prevent the radiation of 
heat from the earth's surface; so that cloudy nights are always 
warmer than those which are clear, and, in consequence, there is 
usually on such nights little or no deposition of dew. 

From dew there is an insensible transition to Hoar Frost; hoar 
frost being in fact only frozen dew, and indicative of greater cold. 
We observe, therefore, that frosty nights, like simply dewy nights, 
are generally still and clear. 

The influence of radiation in producing cold at the earth's surface 
would scarcely be believed by inattentive observers. Often on a 
calm night, the temperature of a grass plot is 10° or 15° less than 
that of the air a few feet above it. Hence, as Mr. Daniell has re- 
marked, vegetables, in our climate, are during ten months of the 
year liable to be exposed at night to a freezing temperature, and 
even in July and August to a temperature only two or three degrees 
warmer. Yet, notwithstanding these vicissitudes, in the words of 
the same gentleman, — " To vegetables growing in climates for 
which they are originally designed by nature, there can be no doubt 
that the action of radiation is particularly beneficial, from the depo- 
sition of moisture which it determines upon the foliage ; and it is 
only to tender plants, artificially trained to resist the rigours of an 
unnatural situation, that this extra degree of cold proves injurious."* 
It may be observed also, that trees of lofty growth frequently escape 
being injured by frost, when plants nearer the ground are quite 
destroyed. 

Such is the explanation of the phenomena of dew now universally 
admitted, of the general accuracy of which there cannot be the least 
doubt. But, we may ask, are all the phenomena of dew strictly re- 
ferable to radiation? and docs not a portion of the water deposited 
as dew arrive at the earth's surface by diffusion from the higher and 
colder regions of the atmosphere, as formerly suggested I 

• Meteorological Essays and Observations, p. 511, second edition. 



MISTS AND FOGS. 159 

Of Mists and Fogs. — Mists are not necessarily connected with the 
deposition of dew, because during the deposition of dew the atmo- 
sphere often continues transparent, even to the earth's surface. At 
other times, however, and for reasons which, in the present state of 
our meteorological knowledge, cannot be satisfactorily explained, 
the deposition of dew is accompanied by a visible vapour or mist, 
more or less dense, and extending from the surface of the earth to a 
greater or less height in the atmosphere. When mists, from other 
causes, are general, and extend to considerable heights above the 
earth's surface they acquire the name of fogs. The optical pro- 
perties and the buoyancy in the atmosphere of mists and fogs, would 
seem to indicate that they are not formed of solid particles, but of 
minute hollow vesicles, having the quality of mutual repulsion ; the 
tendency to repel each other, preventing the coherence of the vesicles 
into drops, at least under ordinary circumstances. These vesicles 
have been occasionally observed of considerable magnitude. Thus 
Saussure, in one of his Alpine journeys, saw vesicles float slowly 
before him having greater diameters than peas, and whose coating 
seemed inconceivably thin. It is proper to mention, however, that 
there is diversity of opinion respecting the actual constitution of 
visible vapour. 

That the cause of the formation of mists and of fogs, is, to a cer- 
tain extent, similar to that of the formation of dew, appears by their 
prevalence over rivers and large masses of water, especially during 
the autumnal months. The radiation of heat from the land and from 
the water is at these seasons very different ; the difference being 
greatest when the temperature of the water approaches 40°, its point 
of maximum density. The water is then of a temperature nearly 
uniform, both by day and by night, while the temperature of the land 
is, during the day, much higher than 40° and during the night, often 
much under that temperature. The water in most cases occupying 
the lowest situations ; whenever, from the inequalities of the surface 
of the land, or from any other cause, the colder air produced by ra- 
diation over the land, is made to mix itself with the warmer air over 
the water, the moisture in the warmer air is condensed so as to 
become mist. Hence the formation of mist differs slightly from 
that of dew, inasmuch as there is occasionally (not always) an inter- 
mixture of air of different temperatures. The reason is thus evident 
of the fogs and mists so frequently seen over rivers and in valleys, 
or in other situations where there is a collection of water. The 
occurence of these mists is usually on clear and cold nights, — oftener 
in autumn, and seldom or never in cloudy weather; the state of the 
atmosphere having exactly the same influence on them, as on the 
deposition of dew. There cannot be a doubt that these mists, like 
clouds, produce a great effect in impeding radiation, and in thus 
mitigating the intensity of cold. Mists are therefore of much im- 
portance in the economy of nature. Plants growing in low grounds 



160 METEOROLOGY. 

are by them shielded from the destroying influence of the sudden 
cold, that would almost certainly be produced, not only by the free 
radiation of heat in such situations, but by the descent of cold air 
from the surrounding high grounds. 

The fogs that hang over great towns admit of an explanatian 
similar to that of other aqueous fogs. The air of the town being 
warmer than that of the surrounding country, and being at the same 
time charged with moisture nearly to the point of saturation, is, in 
cold weather, suddenly cooled, either by the radiation of its own 
heat, or by the admixture of the neighbouring cold air ; while the 
superfluous moisture is condensed as a fog. 

The fogs of high latitudes, more especially the fogs of the Polar 
seas, are in the same manner owing to the radiation of heat. The 
cooling of the warmer air over the immense masses of floating ice, 
gives rise to an unequal distribution of temperature, and thus at 
certain seasons, to uninterrupted fogs. In all these instances the 
effect of fogs is probably beneficial in alleviating the severity of cold 
by checking great and sudden alternations of temperature, which 
would otherwise interfere much with the operations of organic life. 

Fogs have been sometimes observed of a strong odour, apparently 
the result of an admixture of foreign bodies. In a subsequent para- 
graph these fogs will be fully considered. 

Of Clouds. — From mists and fogs the transition to clouds is easy 
and natural ; as clouds, in reality, are nothing more or less than 
masses of visible vapour, precisely similar to that composing fogs, 
but existing at a distance above the earth's surface. Clouds differ 
principally from mists and fogs in their mode of formation. Thus 
mists, like dew, as we have seen, are the results of the cooling of 
the lower strata of the atmosphere by radiation. Fogs are so far 
the result of radiation that they usually arise from the influence that 
air cooled by radiation, exerts on warmer air. While clouds pro- 
bably depend altogether on convection, and result from the inter- 
mixture of strata of air of different temperatures, and in different 
states of saturation, in the higher regions of the atmosphere. 

Such is the general opinion of the formation of clouds ; but it 
must be confessed that there are considerable difficulties about the 
subject; and that the mere assumption of strata o{ different tempe- 
ratures, more or less saturated with vapour, ami having the proper 
motions supposed to depend upon such diflerent temperatures ami 
degrees of saturation, seems quite inadequate to account for all the 
phenomena connected with the formation and appearance of clouds. 
May not many of the phenomena of clouds depend upon the dif- 
fusion of vapour from cold and distant regions \ May not other 
phenomena result from the more or loss sudden decomposition (by 
electricity?) of the deutoxide of hydrogen which we conceive to 
exisl in the atmosphere? 

From the principles formerly stated when we described the phe- 



CLOUDS. 161 

nomena and properties of a mixed atmosphere of air and vapour, it 
appears that clouds in general must be formed at that elevation in 
the atmosphere in which the mean temperature of the air becomes 
equal to, or falls below the point of saturation of such air. This ele- 
vation which may be said to constitute the region of clouds, must of 
course be highest under the Equator — an inference supported by 
fact ; for it has been observed that within the tropics, the clouds are 
most frequently higher than in the temperate zones ; and in the tem- 
perate zones the clouds appear to be higher in summer than they 
are in winter. In the temperate zones Gay Lussac thinks that 
clouds, in general, are upheld at an average distance from the earth's 
surface of between 1500 and 2000 yards. Occasionally, however, 
clouds have a much greater altitude ; and the Cirrus, a form of 
cloud to be presently described, has been seen far above the greatest 
elevation hitherto attained by man. 

In some parts of the w r orld clouds are rarely seen, while in other 
parts the sky is seldom cloudless. Such extremes are usually con- 
fined to extreme climates, or depend upon local causes. In the tem- 
perate zones, from the irregularity of the atmospheric currents, and 
from the other innumerable circumstances, calculated to disturb the 
equilibrium of the atmosphere, the general character of clouds varies 
much even under the same parallel of latitude. Hence all the infinite 
variety of sunshine, of cloud, and of shower, which more especially 
distinguish the temperate zones, and our own variable sky in par- 
ticular; where they exert such constant and commanding influence 
upon our comfort and well-being, as to become almost interwoven 
with our very existence. 

Though clouds are of such endless diversity of figure and ap- 
pearance, they have been classed by Howard under three primary 
forms, and four modifications. The three primary forms are : 

The Cirrus, composed of fibrous-like stripes, parallel, flexuous, 
or diverging, and extensible in all directions. 

The Cumulus, heaped together in convex, or in conical masses, 
and increasing upwards from a horizontal base. 

The Stratus, spreading horizontally is a continuous layer, and in- 
creasing from below. 

The first of these forms, the cirrus, is confined chiefly to the 
higher regions of the atmosphere. The second form, the cumulus 
occupies a lower but still an elevated station ; while the third form, 
the stratus, usually rests on the surface of the earth, constituting 
the mist already described in this chapter. 

Of the four modified forms of clouds, two are intermediate, and 
two are composite. 

The first of the intermediate forms is the Cirro-Cumulus, con- 
sisting of small roundish, and well-defined masses in close horizontal 
arrangement. 

The masses that compose the second intermediate form of clouds, 

14* 



162 METEOROLOGY. 

the Cirro- Stratus, are likewise small and rounded, and are at- 
tenuated towards a part or towards the whole of their circum- 
ference. They are sometimes separate ; when in groups, their ar- 
rangement is either horizontal, or slightly inclined, and the masses 
are either bent downwards, or are undulated. 

Of the two composite forms of clouds, the first is the Cumulo- 
Stratus, made up of the Cirro-Stratus blended with the Cumulus ; 
the Cirro-Stratus being either intermingled with the larger masses of 
the Cumulus, or widely enlarging the cumulus base. 

The second composite form, and the last of the four modifica- 
tions, of clouds, is the Cumulo-Cirro-Stratus, or Nimbus, the rain- 
cloud ; being that cloud or system of clouds from which rain is 
falling. The nimbus is a horizontal layer of aqueous vapour, over 
which, clouds of the cirrous form are spread, while other clouds of 
the cumulus form enter it laterally and from beneath. 

A little attention will enable any one to discriminate these va- 
rieties of clouds, at least when their forms are well defined. Yet, 
it must be acknowledged, that clouds often assume forms to which 
it is difficult to give a name. 

With respect to the motion of clouds, it may be remarked that 
there is not perhaps a more frequent subject of optical delusion, nor 
anything regarding which we are more liable to be mistaken. Into 
such inquiry it would be quite inconsistent with the design of this 
treatise were we to enter minutely ; but w r e offer the following brief 
illustration. Let us suppose a cloud moving from the distant hori- 
zon towards the place where we stand. Let us also suppose that 
the cloud during its motion retains the same size and figure, and 
that it proceeds along its course in a uniform horizontal line. A 
cloud so moving, when first seen, will appear to be in contact with 
the distant horizon ; and w T ill thus necessarily, from its remote posi- 
tion appear to be much smaller than in reality it is. During its ad- 
vance towards us, the cloud will seem to rise into the sky, and to 
become gradually larger, till it is almost directly overhead. Con- 
tinuing its progress it will then seem again to descend from the 
zenith, and to lessen in size as gradually as it had before increased, 
till at last it vanishes in the distance, opposite to where it commenced 
its movement. Thus the same cloud, without deviating from its 
motion in a straight line, and retaining throughout the same size and 
figure, will, by optical delusion, seem continually to vary in magni- 
tude. The line of its motion also, instead of being straight, will 
appear to be a curve having its vertex directly above us. and its 
extremes boundless in opposite points of the horizon. We have 
given the most simple case that can be supposed. Hut clouds, as 
they exist in nature are unceasingly varying in shape, in magnitude, 
in direction, and in velocity; so that to form a just estimate o( their 
figure and direction, or to unravel their motions, becomes absolutely 
impossible. 



snow. 1G3 

After what has been stated, it will be superfluous to dwell upon 
the uses of clouds in the economy of nature ; w 7 e shall therefore 
briefly remind the reader of a few only of the most obvious benefits 
derived from clouds. The first of these that claims our attention is, 
that upon the large scale at least, clouds constitute a sort of inter- 
mediate state of existence between vapour and water, by which 
sudden depositions of water and their consequences are entirely 
prevented. If all the water separated from the atmosphere fell at 
once to the earth, in the state of water, we should be constantly 
liable to deluges and other inconveniences, the whole of which are 
obviated by the present beautiful arrangement. Again clouds are 
one great means by which water is transported from seas and 
oceans to be deposited far inland, where water otherwise would 
never reach. Clouds also greatly mitigate the extremes of tem- 
perature. By day they shield vegetation from the scorching in- 
fluence of the solar heat, and produce all the agreeable vicissitudes 
of shade and sunshine : by night, the earth, wrapt in its mantle of 
clouds, is enabled to retain that heat which w r ould otherwise radiate 
into space, and is thus protected from the opposite influence of the 
nocturnal cold. These benefits arising from clouds are most felt in 
countries without the Tropics, which are most liable to extremes of 
temperature. Indeed, clouds constitute one great means by which, 
in temperate climates, the extremes of heat and cold are regulated. 
Lastly, whether we contemplate them with respect to their form, 
their colour, their numerous modifications, or, more than all, their 
incessant state of change, clouds prove a source of never-failing in- 
terest, and may be classed among the most beautiful objects in na- 
ture. 

Having finished the consideration of the various states of visible 
vapour, we are now to examine the phenomena of the precipitation 
of water from the atmosphere in the form of Snow, Sleet, Rain, and 
Hail. We shall first speak 

Of Snow. — We commence with snow because it offers the most 
simple case of the precipitation of water from the atmosphere ; 
snow being nothing more than the frozen visible vapour composing 
clouds. Hence a flake of snow examined with a high magnifier 
exhibits a beautiful display of minute crystals, often possessing the 
greatest variety of form. 

When the temperature of the atmosphere, down to the earth's sur- 
face, is constantly below the freezing point, it is obvious that any 
moisture separated from the atmosphere must assume the solid form. 
If the quantity separated be small, the frozen particles of water re- 
maining detached, float in the atmosphere in the form of crystallized 
spiculce, and thus give origin to what is called the frost-smoke, a 
phenomena not unfrequently witnessed in polar latitudes. Even in 
temperate climates, the same thing has been supposed occasionally 
to take place in the higher regions of the atmosphere, and thus 



164 METEOROLOGY. 

to produce certain optical phenomena to which we shall hereafter 
refer. 

The above are comparatively rare phenomena. Most generally 
the quantity of water separated is so large that the crystallized 
particles are agglutinated together into masses or flakes, and thus 
fall to the earth in the form of snow. When the quantity deposited 
is very great, as is often the case, there can be no doubt that the 
causes operating to produce such large deposition, are precisely 
similar to those which produce rain in warmer climates, and which 
will be considered in a subsequent paragraph. 

Such, in a few words, are the principles upon which snow is 
formed, and from these the reason is at once apparent, why during 
the winter in temperate climates, and throughout the whole year in 
the polar climates, most of the water that falls to the earth assumes 
the form of snow. 

We formerly mentioned how much we owe to the whiteness of 
snow ; and we may now remark that we owe still more to its low 
conducting properties, and to its lightness. Thus by its low conduct- 
ing properties snow shields vegetation from the rigorous cold of the 
higher latitudes, where everything herbaceous would be destroyed 
during the winter, were it not for the protecting influence of snow. 
Again if the water which now descends to the earth as snow, were 
to be precipitated in the form of solid masses of ice, vegetation 
would be destroyed, and the whole of the colder parts of the earth 
would be uninhabitable ! 

It has been remarked, in temperate climates more especially, that 
the air is usually warmer during a fall of snow, than before or after. 
This increase of temperature probably arises from the extrication of 
heat in the sensible form during the transition of the vapour from a 
fluid to a solid state. Snow-water has also been said to contain much 
oxygen, and thus to be particularly favourable to vegetation. 

Sleet is snow in a half melted condition, and constitutes the inter- 
mediate state between snow and rain, to be next considered. 

Of Rain. — When the temperature of the air is above 32°, the 
freezing point of water, the water separated from the air falls to the 
earth in the state of rain. Such is a general expression of the fact; 
but after all the attention that has been bestowed on the phenomena 
of rain, many difficulties attend the investigation, that have not yet 
been surmounted. 

It cannot be doubted that rain is in some way connected with 
change of temperature; the perplexity attending the subject, arises. 
partly from the impossibility in many instances of accounting for the 
supposed change of temperature; but much more from the difficulty 
of understanding how this change of temperature operates. Ac- 
cording to the usual opinion, the precipitation oi' water from the at- 
mosphere is the effect of the mingling together oi' currents of warm 



RAIX. 165 

and of cold air, which are supposed to operate on each other in the 
following manner. 

From the law of the tension of vapour, already described, it fol- 
lows, that when two currents of air having different temperatures, 
but both alike saturated with vapour, are mixed together; though 
the resulting temperature of the mixture will be the mean of the two, 
the resulting tension of the vapour will not be likewise the mean. 
The resulting tension of the vapour will always exceed the tension 
belonging to the resulting mean temperature; consequently there 
will be an excess of vapour which will be precipitated in the form 
of water. Thus let us suppose two currents of *air, both saturated 
with vapour, the one having a temperature of 40°, and the other a 
temperature of 60°, and that these two currents of air are mingled 
together : 

Inches of Mercury. 
The tension or elastic force of vapour at 40° is equal to - - 263 
of vapour at 60° is - - 524 

Whence it appears that the mean temperature of the two volumes 
of air is 50°, and the mean of the elasticities of their vapour .393 
inches. But the actual tension or elastic force of vapour at 50° is 
not .393 inches, but only .375 inches; after the intermixture, there- 
fore, of the two currents, a quantity of vapour will remain, propor- 
tionate to the tension of 0.18 inches ; and as this superfluity of vapour 
cannot be held in solution by air of the mean temperature of 50°, it 
will be separated in the form of clouds, or of rain, according to cir- 
cumstances. 

Such, in few words, are the opinions respecting rain first advanced 
by Dr. Hutton : and notwithstanding some difficulties about these 
opinions, there can be little doubt of their general accuracy. The 
subject of condensation, in general, may perhaps receive some addi- 
tional elucidation from the principles regulating a mixed atmosphere 
of vapour and air formerly described; and which may be thus ap- 
plied. When two currents of atmospheric air of different tempera- 
tures, and each charged with vapour up to the point of saturation, are 
brought into contact ; they will begin to intermingle in virtue of the 
proper motions of the air and vapour, and the immediate result w T ill 
be the formation of visible vapour, that is to say, of a cloud. If the 
currents are continuous and uniform, the clouds soon spread in all 
directions, so as to occupy the whole horizon ; while the additional 
moisture incessantly brought by the warmer current, or the occa- 
sional diffusion of vapour from a distant and colder region, keeps up 
a constant supply for condensation, and produces a great and con- 
tinued deposition of moisture in the form of rain. By degrees the 
currents completely intermingle, and acquire a uniform temperature; 
condensation then ceases, the clouds are redissolved, and the whole 
face of nature, after being cooled and refreshed by the necessary 



166 METEOROLOGY. 

rain, is again enlivened by the sunshine, thus rendered still more 
agreeable by its contrast with the previous gloom. 

In this manner the principles formerly detailed may be applied to 
the explanation of the phenomena of rain ; and as far as the explana- 
tion goes it is perhaps quite satisfactory. It must, however, be al- 
lowed, as we have before stated, that the utmost information which 
we can at present bring to bear upon the subject of the general con- 
densation of moisture from the atmosphere, and of rain in particular, 
leaves it involved in considerable obscurity. 

The following additional particulars regarding the effects of dif- 
ferent localities, and of different circumstances in the same locality 
which appear to influence the fall of rain, may interest the general 
reader. 

It has been remarked that in the greater number of instances more 
rain falls in the neighbourhood of the sea than in the sea ; a fact 
easily understood from the principles that have been stated. Among 
mountains also more rain falls than on plains ; the excess is indeed 
striking. Thus in our own country, at Kendal and at Keswick, both 
inclosed by mountains, the annual fall of rain amounts to 67§.and 
54 inches respectively, while in many inland places the quantity of 
rain that falls in the course of a year hardly exceeds 25 inches. So 
at Paris, the annual fall of rain is only about 20 inches, but at Geneva 
42§ inches ; and on the Great St. Bernard, the highest meteorologi- 
cal station in Europe, upwards of 63 inches of rain fall during the 
twelve months. 

Although more rain falls in mountainous districts than in plains, it 
has been completely established, that more rain falls at the foot of a 
mountain than at its top. In general, too, a larger proportion of rain 
is separated from the air, near the earth's surface, than at any height 
above it ; a discrepancy of which the present extent of our know- 
ledge does not enable us to give a satisfactory explanation. 

In most. Trophical countries rain falls only at particular seasons of 
the year, there being scarcely any rain during the other seasons. 
Thus, at Bombay, the rainy months are June, July, August, Septem- 
ber, and October, while the other months are almost without rain ; 
but on the opposite side of India, along the Coromandel coast, the 
time of the occurrence of the rainy season is reversed ; a fact strik- 
ingly illustrative of the effect of the intervention of the high table land 
that separates the two coasts, and which probably, by influencing the 
atmospheric currents, give rise to this singular alteration of weather. 

In temperate climates, though the total quantity of rain that falls 
be much less than within the Tropics, there is no protracted dv\ 
son; and the rainy days in the year are more numerous the nearer 
we go to the Poles. Still in general, more rain seems to fall in tem- 
perate climates during the last six, than during the first si\ months 
of the year. 

Among the circumstances which influence the quantity o\' rain in 



HAIL. 167 

the same locality, the most remarkable are diminution of tempera- 
ture, and the unusual prevalence of certain ivinds. 

With respect to diminution of temperature it has been observed 
that almost all wet seasons, or at least wet summers, in temperate 
climates, are unusually cold. Now from the principles formerly ad- 
vanced it will be easily understood, how a depression of the temper- 
ature below the general standard in any locality, may give rise to a 
greater precipitation of moisture in that locality. The locality that 
has become colder than those around it, acts as a refrigeratory, and 
not only condenses and thus deprives of their elastic force, all the 
vapours that are in contact with it ; but the neighbouring vapours 
rush towards the colder locality as towards a vacuum, either in the 
form of visible vapour or clouds, in which case they are carried by 
the winds; or as invisible vapour, in which form their movement 
may be determined by diffusion. 

The effect of the unusual prevalence of certain winds in producing 
an increase of rain, or the reverse, is well known, and is quite intel- 
ligible on the principles we have explained. Thus in tropical climates, 
during the steady prevalence of the trade winds, the currents inter- 
mingle but little, the atmosphere is perfectly cloudless, and no con- 
densation takes place. But when these great currents, following the 
course of the sun, begin at certain seasons of the year to shift their 
direction ; their uniform course suffers derangement, they become in- 
termixed, and condensations of moisture commensurate with the high 
temperature, are produced to an extent quite unknown in temperate 
climates. These condensations form the violent periodical rains of 
hot climates. So also in temperate climates, as for instance in our 
own country, winds coming from the south and from the west, are 
from a warmer climate, and hold much vapour in solution ; while 
winds from the opposite points are colder, and therefore relatively 
drier. Hence w T inds from the south and from the west, are more 
frequently accompanied by rain, than winds from the north and from 
the east : though as we might expect, the precipitation of rain is most 
decided during the conflicts between these opposite currents, which 
sometimes extend over a large tract of country. The long prevalence 
of certain winds may thus cause the seasons to be wet in one part 
of the world, and dry in another ; the water being as it were, dis- 
tilled off from the one, in order that it may be precipitated on the 
other. Yet the whole amount of the rain in the two countries may 
perhaps differ very little from the usual average, while the two coun- 
tries have the benefit of variety in the general amount of their rain; 
which variety may be salutary at particular periods, and may even 
be necessary to their well-being. 

Before we end the examination of the phenomena of rain, it may 
be proper to advert to the generally admitted influence of the Moon 
on the weather, and especially on the fall of rain. This influence, 
however, can hardly in the present state of our knowledge be brought 



168 METEOROLOGY. 

to elucidate the phenomena of rain ; so great are the disturbing ef- 
fects of local and other peculiarities. 

Of Hail — The last form in which we have to consider the preci- 
pitation of water from the atmosphere, is hail. Hail may be regarded 
as consisting of drops of rain more or less suddenly frozen by expo- 
sure to a temperature below 32°. If the degree of cold has been very 
sudden and intense, which is often the case, the icy nucleus, from its 
being of a temperature far below the freezing point, acquires mag- 
nitude as it descends, by condensing on its surface the vapour of the 
lower regions of the atmosphere. Hence, even under ordinary cir- 
cumstances, hail stones often become of considerable size, are nearly 
always more or less rounded, and when broken are seen to be com- 
posed of concentric layers. 

From what has been stated it will be readily inferred that hail is 
not a product of extreme climates; indeed hail may be said to be 
peculiar to temperate climates, as it rarely ever occurs beyond the 
latitude of 60°. Hail is most frequent in spring and in summer, when 
it is often accompanied by thunder. It seldom hails in winter, and 
hail during the night is very uncommon. In tropical countries there 
is little hail in any place that is not more than 2000 feet above the 
level of the sea : in temperate climates, on the contrary, mountain 
tops are almost free from hail. Certain countries, especially some 
parts of France, are very liable to hail storms ; and such is at times 
the fury of these storms that they lay waste whole districts. There 
are on record many instances of these calamitous visitations, which 
are usually accompanied by whirlwinds and by the most appalling 
electrical phenomena. During storms of such degree of severity, 
hail stones have sometimes fallen of enormous magnitude, and often 
of an irregular shape, as if they were the fragments of a thick sheet 
of ice suddenly broken: a supposition which alone will explain the 
formation of angular masses, many inches in size, and many pounds 
in weight. The production in the middle of summer of the intense 
cold that is thus indicated is a puzzle which philosophers have been 
unable to solve. 

Of the Distribution of Heat and Light in their latent and decom- 
posed Forms through the Vapour of the Atmosphere; and of the 
Effects of that Distribution. — The general distribution of heat and 
light in their latent forms through the vapour of the atmosphere, 
seems to follow the same laws as the distribution of sensible heat 
formerly explained. That is to say, the distribution of these forms 
of heat and light decreases from the Equator toward the Poles. 
The most remarkable effects of the distribution of latent heat have 
already been incidentally mentioned, and need not be here repeated. 
We shall therefore proceed to consider the particular distribution of 
the decomposed forms of heat and light in the vapour o( the atmo- 
sphere, and the elfects of this distribution. 



RELATION OF ELECTRICITY TO VAPOUR. 169 

Of the Rdatlons of Electricity to the Vapour of the Atmosphere. — 
Atmospheric air, when perfectly dry and pure, is one of the most 
complete non-conductors of electricity that are known. Whether 
water in the state of vapour possesses similar non-conducting pro- 
perties does not appear to be satisfactorily established. But the non- 
conducting powers of aqueous vapour must be very considerable, 
otherwise, since the atmosphere is never entirely free from vapour, 
electrical insulation could not take place. On the other hand, the 
moment that vapour assumes the form of water, it acquires the pro- 
perty of being a conductor of electricity. Hence a mass of visible 
vapour or cloud, when floating in a mixed atmosphere of air and 
vapour, is perfectly insulated, and is thus capable of electrical accu- 
mulation. Now the phenomena arising from the equalization of 
such derangements of electrical distribution, are lightning and thun- 
der. Lightning and thunder therefore are nothing, either more or 
less, than the phenomena of electricity on a large scale ; that is to 
say, a cloud and the earth, or two clouds, become surcharged with 
the two opposite forms of electricity, and thus represent the interior 
and the exterior coatings of an electrical jar similarly surcharged ; 
the intervening and non-conducting air are represented by the inter- 
posed and non-conducting glass ; while the lightning and the thunder 
are the sparks and the explosion caused by the union of the two 
electricities. If the reader bear in mind this analogy, it will enable 
him to understand the whole electrical phenomena of the atmo- 
sphere. 

The distribution of electricity, like that of heat and light, decreases 
from the Equator toward the Poles. Thus, in intertropical countries 
alone, are the effects of this energetic agent displayed in all their 
power ; there, thunder storms are quite terrific, and far surpass any- 
thing of w r hich those, who have not witnessed them, can form a con- 
ception. In temperate climates the effects of atmospheric electricity 
are usually most severe in the summer ; and their severity is greater 
in mountainous districts than in plains. Yet, even under these cir- 
cumstances, they are much subdued, as compared with what takes 
place between the Tropics; while in the Polar regions electrical 
phenomena are still less striking. 

Notwithstanding, however, that the general distribution of elec- 
tricity in the atmosphere, evidently follows the general distribution 
of sensible heat, it is a remarkable fact, that whenever electrical 
phenomena are more than ordinarily vehement, they are accompa- 
nied by some unusual appearance of cold. Thus the alarming de- 
scents of hail formerly noticed, which occur most generally in tem- 
perate climates, have, in nearly every instance, been attendants of 
violent thunder' storms. Snow also is almost always highly electric. 
These, and many other circumstances connected with the great and 
sudden production of cold in the higher regions of the atmosphere, 
during the display of electrical agency, cannot, in the present state 

15 



170 METEOROLOGY. 

of our knowledge, be explained. For example, whence, in the mid- 
dle of summer, arises that instantaneous developement of extreme 
cold, which occasionally produces the terrific hail storms above al- 
luded to? At present the answer does not appear. Whether the 
principles advanced in the present volume be capable of solving the 
difficulty, time must determine. 

With respect to the sources of the electricity of the atmosphere 
there have been many opinions. It seems now to be admitted that 
electrical excitement does not arise from the mere evaporation and 
condensation of water ; but that, in order to produce such excite- 
ment, there must always be some chemical combination or separa- 
tion.* Thus electrical excitement is the result of the chemical 
changes which often accompany the evaporation of water. During 
combustion also there is an ample evolution of electricity ; the burn- 
ing body giving out negative, the oxygen positive electricity. In 
like manner, the carbonic acid sent forth during vegetation is charged 
with negative electricity, and at the same time the oxygen, as is 
most likely, is charged with positive electricity. Derivation from 
these sources has been deemed quite sufficient to explain the very 
large quantities of electricity that are so often accumulated in the 
clouds. It is however probable that there are yet other causes, or 
at least one other cause, on which, in numerous instances, this accu- 
mulation may still more immediately depend. We allude to the 
combination of oxygen with the vapour of the atmosphere formerly 
mentioned. For reasons which we cannot here detail, our opinion 
is, that this combination of aqueous vapour with oxygen, more than 
any other cause whatever, is in some way concerned with the phe- 
nomena of atmospheric electricity. 

The Aurora borealis is a phenomenon supposed to have some con- 
nexion with electricity, though its precise nature is involved in con- 
siderable obscurity. The phenomenon evidently indicates currents 
of some kind ; and if the light be electrical, we can only suppose 
such electrical currents to take place in an imperfectly conducting 
medium. That is to say, if the phenomenon, as some contend, exist 
in the lower regions of the atmosphere, luminous electrical currents 
can be produced only by water in the liquid state; if the phenomenon 
exist in the higher regions of the atmosphere, as at present is sup- 
posed, such currents may depend upon the extreme tenuity of the 
atmosphere 'in these higher regions. Our own opinion is, that at dif- 
ferent times, the aurora borealis exists at different heights in the 
atmosphere, and consequently may depend upon both these causes. 
Has the diffusion of vapour from the Polar towards the Equatorial 
regions of the globe any connexion with the phenomenon I 

The phenomena depending upon (he decomposition, refraction, and 
reflection of light by the vapour of the atmosphere are not less Striking 

* Pouillet, Elomcns dc Physique experimentale et de Mtftcorologic, torn. ii. p. B83< 



MIRAGE. FATA MORGANA. HALOS, ETC. 171 

and important than those produced by electricity. To such effects 
upon light by the atmospheric vapour we owe not only the cerulean 
tint of the sky, and all the splendid colouring of the clouds, but the 
beneficial morning and evening twilight, nay even the light of day 
itself. " Were it not," says Sir J. Herschel, " for the reflecting and 
scattering powder of the atmosphere, no objects would be visible to 
us out of direct sunshine, every shadow of a passing cloud would 
be pitchy darkness ; the stars would be visible all day, and every 
apartment into which the sun had not direct admission would be in- 
volved in nocturnal obscurity." Again to use the words of the same 
author, in speaking of twilight, — " After the sun and moon are set, 
the influence of the atmosphere still continues to send us a portion 
of their light ; not indeed by direct transmission, but by reflection 
upon the vapours and minute solid particles which float in it, and 
perhaps the actual material atoms of the air itself."* Such are the 
beautiful phenomena and the important results of the action of the 
vapour of the atmosphere upon light. It remains to mention a few 
others, of a similar character, produced by the same causes, but of 
less frequent occurrence and of less importance in the economy of 
nature. 

The first of these minor phenomena which we shall notice is the 
Mirage, a phenomenon depending partly on the vapour of the atmo- 
sphere, and partly on the intermixture of strata of air of different 
temperatures and densities. The mirage is not unfrequent in level 
countries, when their surface is strongly heated by the sun's rays, 
and evaporation results from the continuance of the heat. The 
mirage assumes the appearance of a sheet of water, often exhibiting 
the reflected or inverted images of distant objects. In Egypt and 
in the neighbouring sandy plains, where the mirage is very common, 
the illusion is at times so perfect, that travellers can hardly be con- 
vinced of the non-existence of what they imagine they see.f The 
phenomena are quite explicable on well known optical principles. J 

Nearly allied to the mirage is the appearance termed Fata Mor- 
gana, which is occasionally witnessed in the Straits of Messina. 
There are many similar phenomena, all of them owing to the refrac- 
tion of light by media of various densities. 

The next class of phenomena to be noticed are those produced 
upon light by crystals of ice floating in the atmosphere, or by visible 
vapour. The angular forms of the crystals of ice, by determining 
the rays of light in different directions, give origin to various eccen- 
tric halos ; which, by their united intensities, particularly where they 
cross one another, occasionally produce conspicuous masses of light, 
denominated parhelia and paraselenes, or mock suns and mock moons. 

* Treatise on Astronomy, p. 33. 
■J- See Clarke's Travels. 

* See Wollaston, Philosophical Transactions, 1800, p. 239. 



172 METEOROLOGY. 

Visible vapours, consisting of water in the fluid state, likewise some- 
times form halos ; but these halos (when more than one exists) are 
always concentric, ihe sun or moon being in the centre. These two 
phenomena not unfrequently take place at the same time. 

The last and most frequent phenomenon of the general kind which 
we shall notice is produced by the action of fluid drops of water 
upon light, viz. the well known phenomenon termed the Rainbow. 
The concomitants of the rainbow are familiar to every one: there 
must be rain along with sunshine. Under these circumstances if the 
spectator turns his back to the sun, he sees the coloured bow project 
on the opposite cloud, and displaying all the tints of the prismatic 
spectrum. 

We are informed in the sacred narrative, that this beautiful phe- 
nomenon was chosen as a symbol to mankind of their exemption 
from future deluge. The sceptic may be challenged to state what 
pledge could have been more felicitous or more satisfactory. In 
order that the rainbow may appear, the clouds must be partial. 
Hence the existence of the rainbow is absolutely incompatible with 
universal deluge from above. So long, therefore, as " He doth set 
his bow in the clouds" so long have we full assurance that these 
clouds must continue to shower down good and not evil upon the 
earth. 

3. Of the Occasional Presence of Foreign Bodies in the Atmosphere 
and of their Effects. — The foreign bodies that occasionally exist in 
the atmosphere may be considered as of two kinds; viz. those which 
are merely suspended in the atmosphere in a state of mixture ; and 
those which pervade the atmosphere in a state of solution. 

Both in ancient and in modern times, and in various parts of the 
world, rain and snow have been observed to be coloured by an ad- 
mixture of extraneous matters. The nature of these colouring 
matters has been found to be very different in different instances : 
some have proved to be of vegetable origin, consisting of minute 
lichens and other cryptogamous plants, brought from a distance by 
the agency of the winds, and diffused in myriads through the atmo- 
sphere. Such vegetable matters have been sometimes more or less 
red: whence those imagined showers of blood we read of as pro- 
ducing so much popular excitation. In other instances the colour 
has been given by earthy and metallic matters in a state of very fine 
powder, and in this case their descent has been usually accompanied 
by violent electrical phenomena, similar to those which almost al- 
ways attend the descent of Meteoric stones or Aerolites, to which 
perhaps they are nearly allied. 

Of the falling of stones from the atmosphere, there can now be no 
doubt; though the origin and the nature of these stones are very 
obscure, and indeed cannot, in the present state tA' our knowledge, 
be -explained. There have been various opinions in\ the subject. 

Some, considering aerolites to be the productions of our own planet, 



FOREIGN BODIES IN THE ATMOSPHERE. 173 

have viewed them as masses projected from volcanoes to a great 
height and distance in the atmosphere ; or as formed by the agglu- 
tination of the earthy and metallic powders from volcanoes, as be- 
fore mentioned. Others ascribing to aerolites quite a different origin, 
have viewed them as fragments scattered through space, which 
happening to come within the sphere of our earth's attraction, have 
been determined to its surface, &c. 

Although we are thus uncertain regarding the origin of aerolites, 
or their use in the economy of nature ; it now seems by innumerable 
observations to be completely established, that aerolites, while in the 
higher regions of the atmosphere, are often in a state of intense 
ignition. They there assume the form of brilliant meteors, which as 
they approach the earth, burst with a loud explosion, followed by a 
shower of stones. These stones generally exhibit evident marks of 
fusion : and many of them have been picked up while still warm, so 
as to leave no doubt of their being real aerolites. It is singular too, 
that the composition of aerolites is in some degree peculiar. They 
invariably contain, either iron, or cobalt, or nickel, or all these three 
metals, in union with various earthy substances. Aerolites have been 
found of every size, from that of a few grains to the weight of 
several hundreds of pounds ; for of this weight are some of those 
isolated masses of iron seen in different parts of the world, and 
which are generally allowed to be of meteoric origin. 

Intermediate, as it were, between substances suspended, and sub- 
stances dissolved, in the atmosphere, are those matters, whatever 
their nature may be, which have been known to spread as a haze 
over large districts, and have been termed " Dry Fogs" 

In the year 1782, and still more in the year following, a re- 
markable haze of this kind extended over the whole of Europe. 
Seen in mass this haze was of a pale blue colour. It was thickest 
at noon, when the sun appeared through it of a red colour. Rain 
did not in the least degree affect it. This haze is said to have pos- 
sessed drying properties, and to have occasionally yielded a strong 
and peculiar odour. It is also said to have deposited in some places 
a viscid liquid, of an acrid taste, and of an unpleasant smell. About 
the same time, there were, in Calabria and Iceland, terrible earth- 
quakes, accompanied by volcanic eruptions. These earthquakes 
and eruptions were supposed to have been connected with the haze. 
Indeed it has been generally remarked, that such a condition of the 
atmosphere has been usually preceded by an earthquake, either in 
the same or in some adjoining country. The dispersion of this haze 
in the summer of 1783 was attended by severe thunder storms. As 
might be expected, the general state of health has, for the most part, 
been deranged during the continuance of these phenomena. Simul- 
taneously there have been epidemic diseases of various kinds. Thus, 
in the above-mentioned years, 1782 and 1783, an epidemic catarrh 

15* 



174 METEOROLOGY. 

or influenza, prevailed through Europe; affecting not only mankind 
but likewise other an'mals.* 

The nature of the matter thus diffused through the atmosphere is 
quite unknown. It may be as various at different times as the cha- 
racter of the epidemics to which it gives origin. As an example of 
the extraordinary effects which foreign bodies, when diffused 
through the atmosphere, are capable of producing, we may mention 
those produced by Selenium when, in combination with hydrogen, 
it is diffused as a gas through the air, even in the most minute quan- 
tity. The effects of this gaseous combination of selenium with 
hydrogen are thus described by the celebrated chemist, Berzelius, its 
discoverer. " In the first experiment which I made on the inhaLation 
of this gas, I conceive that I let up into my nostrils a bubble of gas, 
about the size of a small pea. It deprived me so completely of the 
sense of smell, that I could apply a bottle of concentrated ammonia 
to my nose without perceiving any odour. After five or six hours. I 
began to recover the sense of smell, but a severe catarrh remained 
for about fifteen days. On another occasion, while preparing this 
gas, I became sensible of a slight hepatic odour, because the vessel 
was not quite close ; but the aperture was very small, and when I 
covered it with a drop of water, small bubbles were seen to issue, 
about the size of a pin's head. To avoid being incommoded with 
the gas, I put the apparatus under the chimney of the laboratory. I 
felt at first a sharp sensation in my nose ; my eyes then became red, 
and other symptoms of catarrh began to appear, but only to a trifling 
extent. In half an hour I was seized with a dry and painful cough, 
which continued for a long time, and which was at last accompanied 
by an expectoration, having a taste entirely like that of the vapour 
from a boiling solution of corrosive sublimate. These symptoms were 
removed by the application of a blister to my chest. The quantity 
of Seleniuretted Hydrogen Gas which on each of these occasions 
entered into my organs of respiration was much smaller than would 
have been required of any other inorganic substance whatever, to 
produce similar effects."f 

As we have already stated, selenium, is for the most part found in 
association with mineral sulphur. Selenium is also, like sulphur, a 
volcanic product. Now, though we can hardly imagine the possi- 
bility of the diffusion of selenium through the atmosphere in combi- 
nation with hydrogen; selenium may be so diffused in some other 
form of combination, which may produce effects analogous to those 
of seleniuretted hydrogen. We do not mean to assert that the dif- 
fusion of any such substance really takes place. Our intention is 
merely to show that a small quantity of an active ingredient, like 
selenium, is sufficient to contaminate the atmosphere over a wide 

* See Article Influenza, in the Encyclopaedia of Practical Medicine. 
\ Annul* of Philobopby, OKI Series, vol. xiv p. 101. 



EFFECTS OF FOREIGN BODIES IX THE AIR. 175 

extent of country. Such a substance being ejected from the crater 
of a volcano during an eruption, or through a crevice in the earth 
during an earthquake, may thus produce an epidemic disease. Nor 
is it improbable that many epidemics, particularly those of a catar- 
rhal kind, have so originated. 

The matters occasionally diffused through the atmosphere, which 
appear to be in a state of solution, are not often perceptible by our 
senses, unless in some cases, perhaps, by the sense of smell. 

As an instance of the presence of such bodies in the atmosphere 
we may mention a very remarkable observation which occurred to 
the writer of this treatise during the late prevalence of epidemic 
cholera. He had for some years been occupied in investigations 
regarding the atmosphere; and for more than six weeks previously 
to the appearance of cholera in London, had almost every day been 
engaged in endeavouring to determine, with the utmost possible 
accuracy, the weight of a given quantity of air, under precisely the 
same circumstances of temperature and of pressure. On a particular 
day, the 9th of February, 1832, the weight of the air suddenly ap- 
peared to rise above the usual standard. As the rise was at the time 
supposed to be the result of some accidental error, or of some de- 
rangement in the apparatus employed ; in order to discover its cause, 
the succeeding observations were made with the most rigid scrutiny. 
But no error or derangement whatever could be detected. On the 
days immediately following, the weight of the air still continued 
above the standard ; though not quite so high as on the 9th of Fe- 
bruary, when the change was first noticed. The air retained its 
augmented weight during the whole time these experiments were 
carried on, namely, about six weeks longer. The increase of the 
weight of the air observed in these experiments was small ; but still 
decided, and real. The method of conducting the experiment was 
such as not to allow of an error, at least to an amount so great as 
the additional weight, without the cause of that error having become 
apparent. There seems, therefore, to be only one mode of ration- 
ally explaining this increased weight of the air at London in Febru- 
ary, 1832; which is, by admitting the diffusion of some gaseous 
body through the air of this city, considerably heavier than the air 
it displaced. About the 9th of February the wind in London, which 
had previously been west, veered round to the east, and remained 
pretty steadily in that quarter till the end of the month. Now, pre- 
cisely on the change of the wind the first cases of epidemic cholera 
were reported in London ; and from that time the disease continued 
to spread. That the epidemic cholera was the effect of the peculiar 
condition of the atmosphere, is more perhaps than can be safely 
maintained ; but reasons, which have been advanced elsewhere, lead 
the writer of this treatise to believe that the virulent disease, termed 
cholera, was owing to the same matter that produced the additional 
weight of the air. The statement of these reasons would be quite 



176 METEOROLOGY. 

out of place : it is enough to say, that they are principally founded 
on remarkable changes in certain secretions of the human body, 
which, during the prevalence of the epidemic, were observed to be 
almost universal ; and that analogous changes have been observed 
in the same secretions of those, who have been much exposed to 
what has been termed Malaria. The foreign body, therefore, that 
was diffused through the atmosphere of London, in February, 1832, 
was probably a variety of malaria, a subject which we now proceed 
to consider. 

In districts partially covered with water, and having a luxuriant 
vegetation, such as marshes and fens, particularly in warm countries; 
or in colder countries, at seasons of the year when the sun is most 
powerful ; noxious exhalations arise, whose nature differs perhaps in 
some degree according to the locality. Such exhalations have re- 
ceived the general name of Malaria, and are well known to be the 
fertile source of various diseases, more or less, of the intermittent 
febrile type. In cold and in temperate climates, these diseases for 
the most part assume the character of regular ague, or of rheuma- 
tism : but on approaching to, and within the Tropics, they appear as 
the more formidable remittent and continued fevers, the well-known 
scourges of hot climates. 

With respect to the nature of these exhalations our knowledge is 
very imperfect. Evidently, they are in some way connected with 
vegetation ; not however with vegetation living and in a state of 
growth, but with vegetation in a state of decay. It has therefore 
been thought likely that these exhalations contain some gaseous 
body, composed chiefly of hydrogen and carbon. Their effect may 
arise from a gaseous compound of this description, though no such 
compound is at present know T n ; and the probability is, that malaria 
occasionally owes its properties to other elements, besides the hydro- 
gen and carbon disengaged from decaying vegetables. 

We have thus endeavoured to give a concise statement of that 
wonderful assemblage of Laws, of Adaptations, and of Arrange- 
ments, which view 7 ed together constitute what we term Climate ; 
and which, as affecting the welfare of the denizens of this globe, un- 
doubtedly, are not surpassed in interest or importance by any others 
throughout the whole of nature. Of the innumerable suns and pla- 
nets that may occupy the boundless expanse of the universe we feel 
not the influence; even their existence scarcely obtrudes itself upon 
our notice. But in the light and the heat of our own sun, and in the 
wind and the rain of our own atmosphere, every organized being on 
this earth, from Man, the Lord of its creation, down to the humbles; 
plant that drinks the dew, is alike most intimately concerned. The 
subject of Meteorology, therefore, in all ages and countries, lias at- 
tracted the especial attention of mankind. Jn ruder States of society 
empirical prognostics, founded on the aspects of the clouds, on the 
movements of animals, and on Other incidental occurrences, formed 



GENERAL DESIGN EVINCED BY CLIMATE. 177 

the study of those who pretended to a foreknowledge of the weather; 
while electrical phenomena were to them objects of superstitious 
awe. In modern times much of this wonder and uncertainty has 
been removed. The gloom or the clearness of the air, the mists and 
the halos of a stormy sky, the restlessness and clamour of animals, 
&c, are now referred simply to that overcharge of moisture, and 
to that unequal distribution of electricity which precede a fall of 
rain. Nay, the very thunderbolt has been arrested in its course, and 
from being no longer an object of amazement, has been divested of 
half its terrors. 

But is this advance in knowledge calculated to lessen our venera- 
tion for the great Author of nature, or to derogate from his wisdom 
and his power? On the contrary, our estimate of both must be 
greatly increased. Of the Deity, infinite as he is, and dwelling in 
infinity, we finite beings can form no conception. What little there- 
fore, we can know of Him, we know nearly altogether from His 
works. Consequently he who has the most studied His works, will 
be the best qualified — nay, will be alone qualified, to form an ade- 
quate conception of Him. Thus to measure, to weigh, to estimate, 
to deduce, may be considered as the noblest privileges enjoyed by 
man ; for only by these operations is he enabled to follow the foot- 
steps of his Maker and to trace His great designs. Instructed by 
these he sees and appreciates the wisdom and the power, the justice 
and, the benevolence that reign throughout creation : he no longer 
gazes on the sky with stupid wonder ; nor dreads the thunderbolt as 
manifesting the wrath of a vengeful Deity. 

The constituents of climate, even imperfectly as they can be 
understood by us, are seen to be adjusted and arranged in a manner 
so surprising, that to those who admit the existence of design, they 
require only to be stated and apprehended, in order to their being 
received as additional proofs of that great argument. Where all 
are great, and splendid, and good, selection is precluded ; but the 
circumstances accompanying the distribution of Water over this 
globe, more perhaps than any other, arrest our notice as indicative 
of design. Leaving out of view the other properties of water ; on 
what other supposition, besides that of design, can we account for 
all these -astonishing properties on which depend its evaporation and 
diffusion through the atmosphere — its subsequent condensation, not 
at once in the form of water or of ice, but in the intermediate state 
of clouds — its colour and lightness when in the state of snow — its 
power of refracting light and of conducting electricity — in short, all 
the numerous, minute, and happily contrived qualities displayed by 
this highly elaborated fluid? These together form such a union of 
adaptations and arrangements, each most succesfully accomplishing 
a particular purpose, and apparently directed to, and designed for, 
that purpose, that to doubt the agency of design would seem im- 
possible. Yet there are some men's minds so warped that they 



178 METEOROLOGY. 

either cannot or will not be persuaded of the existence of design ; 
but asserting the omnipotence of the laws of nature, they forget 
Him who framed these laws, and are reluctant to give credence to 
His being or to His power. To such persons Meteorology offers 
one or two exclusive arguments, which, at the risk of being accused 
of tediousness, and unnecessary repetition, we shall urge briefly in 
this place. 

The great Author of Nature, as we have before said, has chosen 
to act agreeably to certain established laws, by which he is invaria- 
bly guided. Some of these laws we are able more or less to com- 
prehend, and we can refer them to more general principles. Others 
are beyond our comprehension : we see only their effects ; and even 
these effects are most imperfectly revealed to us. As instances of 
the laws of nature which it is in our power to refer to general prin- 
ciples, may be mentioned the currents in the ocean and in the atmo- 
sphere, by which the equilibrium of temperature over the globe is 
maintained. These currents, we know, are strictly referable to hy- 
drostatic and pneumatic principles. The argument of design, which 
is deducible from these principles, rests, therefore, not so much on 
the principles themselves, as on their application precisely where 
they are requisite. On the other hand, as we stated at the com- 
mencement of this book, the laws of chemistry are founded solely 
on experience ; so that our acquaintance with them is very defective; 
for in very few instances are they referable to the laws of quantity, 
and even when they can be so referred, it is only in a manner very 
imperfect. But though we do not comprehend the law r s of chemistry, 
we see that many of them, perhaps all, in so far as they are intelligi- 
ble to us, are entirely consistent with each other ; and are as uniform 
in their operations as those which obviously depend on mechanical 
principles, or on the laws of gravity. Thus the laws, that all bodies 
are expanded by heat and are contracted by cold — that chemical 
substances do not mix, but always combine in certain proportions. 
and in no others, — are general laws, to which there are so few 
exceptions, that they are calculated on almost with as much certain- 
ty, in the operations of nature, and in the common intercourse of 
mankind; as the invariable and necessary results, that a heavy body 
will fall to the earth, or that two and two make four. We have 
selected these laws of chemistry partly from their general and indis- 
putable character, and partly that the force of the argument which 
follows may be more conspicuous : 

All bodies are expanded by heat and contracted hi/ cold. If water 
had not constituted an exception to this law, though all its other pro- 
perties had been the same as they now are, long before this time, 
as we have seen, half the water on the globe would have been con- 
verted into ice; and the existence of organized beings would have 
been physically impossible. 



GENERAL DESIGN EVINCED BY CLIMATE. 179 

All chemical substances combine in certain proportions, and in no 
others. If air had been formed according to this law, everything 
else being the same as at present, long before this time, half of the 
air in the atmosphere would have been contaminated and rendered 
unfit for the support of animal life. In order, therefore, that icater 
might not be frozen; and that air might not become irrespirable ; laws 
must be infringed — and they are infringed ; infringed too, pre- 
cisely where their infringement, both in kind and degree, is indis- 
pensably necessary to organic existence. Now, we appeal to the 
most inflexible sceptic regarding the argument of design, and ask 
him, on what other principle, unless that of express adaptation and 
design, can two such general laws have been infringed exactly in 
those instances in which their infringement is wanted, and nowhere 
else 1 Of the sophistry by which the evasion of this plain question 
may be attempted, we are quite ignorant. But we cannot resist the 
conviction, that one purpose of the arrangement has been that of 
confounding the presumptuous sceptic ; who is thus perpetually re- 
minded of the infringement of his boasted " laws of nature," by the 
very water he drinks, and by the very air he breathes. 

With respect to foreign bodies in the atmosphere, which have 
been treated of in the last section, it remains to observe, that though 
of very opposite characters, they have yet this resemblance ; that 
they all apparently exist less on their own account, than as being 
the inevitable results of general laws established for a higher pur- 
pose. Such results of general laws may be considered as analo- 
gous to the coldness and darkness, which necessarily prevail around 
the poles, from the earth's position in relation to the sun ; and they 
have been alike permitted, not because they could not have been 
avoided or removed, but in the language of Paley, before quoted, 
" because the Deity has been pleased to prescribe limits to his own 
power, and to work his ends within these limits." 

Man, forgetting how insignificant he is, and how limited his 
utmost knowledge, is too apt to measure Omnipotence by the 
standard of his own narrow intellect, and to be guided by his own 
selfish feelings, in judging of the extent of Divine benevolence. 
That this earth, a minute fraction, as it is, of a great and wonder- 
ful system, should be amenable to the general laws by which the 
whole system is governed, is, at least, exceedingly probable. Of 
such general laws, of their changes, of their aberrations, or of their 
influences, we, situated in this extremity of the universe, cannot see 
the object. What therefore, appears to us anomalous or defective, 
may in reality be parts of some great cycle or series, too vast to be 
comprehended by the human mind, and only known to beings of 
a higher order, or to the Creator himself. So again, amidst the 
desolation of the hurricane, or of the thunder storm ; in the settled 
affliction of malaria, and in the march of the pestilence ; the good- 
ness of the Deity is impugned, his power even, is regarded doubt- 



180 METEOROLOGY. 

fully. But what, in truth, are all these visitations but so many 
examples of the "unsearchable ways" of the Almighty ; " He sits 
on the whirlwind, and directs the storm :" a hamlet is laid waste ; 
a few individuals may perish ; but the general result is good : the 
atmosphere is purified ; and the pestilence with all its train of evils 
disappear. Nay, however inscrutable the object of the deadly ma- 
laria itself, do we not see one end which it serves, namely, to stimu- 
late the reasoning powers, and the industry of man ? By his reason, 
man has been guided to an antidote beneficently adapted for his use, 
which has stript malaria of half its terrors. By his industry, the 
marsh has been converted into fertile land, and disease has given 
place to salubrity. 

When, therefore, we duly consider all these things ; when w T e re- 
flect also on the number, the properties, the various conditions of 
the matters composing our globe ; the wonder surely is, not that a 
few of these matters occasionally exist as foreign bodies in the at- 
mosphere, but that others of these matters are not at all times dif- 
fused through it, and in such quantity as to be imcompatible with 
organic life. Thus, the original constitution of the atmosphere, and 
the preservation of its purity against all these contaminating in- 
fluences, may be viewed as the strongest arguments w 7 e possess, in 
demonstration of the benevolence, the wisdom, and the omnipotence 
of the Deity : benevolence in having willed such a positive good ; 
wisdom in having contrived it ; and omnipotence in having created 
it, and in still upholding its existence. 



CHAPTER VI. 

OF THE ADAPTATION OF ORGANIZED BEINGS TO CLIMATE; COMPREHEND- 
ING A GENERAL SKETCH OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS 
OVER THE GLOBE ; AND OF THE PRESENT POSITION AND FUTURE PROS- 
PECTS OF MAN. 

In the general survey of climate, and of its reference to organiza- 
tion, given in the preceding chapter, we have seen, on the one hand, 
that, by a series of wonderful expedients, the climate or tempera- 
ture of the greater portion of the earth's surface has been so equal- 
ized as to be brought within the range of organic existence. On 
the other hand, we shall find that, by a series of expedients, no less 
wonderful, organic existence has been so diversified and extended, 
as to include all the possible varieties of soil and climate. Hence, 
the arrangement, taken altogether, presents us with such extraor- 
dinary instances of mutual adaptation of Its various constituents to 



ADAPTATION" OF ORGANIZED BEINGS TO CLIMATE. 181 

each other, as to admit of explanation only upon the supposition of 
the whole being different parts of the same magnificent Design ; 
while the infinite variety, where all might have been otherwise, 
must be considered as equally indicative of the Benevolence, and 
the Power of the Designer. 

Next to Climate, the circumstances in which organized beings are 
more immediately concerned is Soil ; a subject already alluded to, 
but which it will be necessary to illustrate a little further before we 
proceed. 

The soil is that collection of matters, more or less in a state of 
comminution, which immediately covering the general surface of 
the earth, fills up its minor inequalities, and rounds off its asperities. 
On this layer of comminuted mineral substances and organic re- 
mains, all vegetables and animals, at least all land animals, depend 
for their existence ; and, if there ever was a time when the mate- 
rials composing this globe were collected into solid masses, it is 
evident that such a condition must have excluded organic life ; even 
if everything else had existed the same as at present. 

The formation of the soil has apparently been a work of time, 
and the result of the gradual attrition of the solid materials com- 
posing the crust of this globe. Hence the formation of soil has 
probably been always progressive, and is still going on. Besides 
this gradual attrition, the harder materials of our globe seem to have 
suffered much disintegration during those periodic convulsions for- 
merly mentioned. By the same convulsions, also, the different com- 
minuted materials have evidently been mixed and scattered, and 
finally deposited over the surface of the whole earth, so as to give 
occasion to that infinite variety which everywhere prevails. 

The foregoing remarks naturally lead to the conclusion that the 
characters of the soil will generally agree with those of the rocks 
composing the crust of the earth ; and this inference is correct. 
The more common ingredients in rocks are silex, alumina, lime, 
magnesia, and iron ; and these mineral matters actually constitute 
the greater bulk of every soil. The remaining matters consist of 
more or less of various other earthy and saline principles, and of 
vegetable and animal remains. 

After these general observations upon soils, we come to the pro- 
per subject of this chapter, which we shall consider under the three 
following sections : — Of the Distribution of Plants over the globe ; — 
Of the Distribution of Animals over the globe ; and, — Of the present 
Condition and future Prospects of Man. 



16 



182 METEOROLOGY. 

Section I. 
Of the Distribution of Plants over the Globe. 

From what has been stated, it will be readily understood that 
Soil and Climate are the two great and immediate causes by which 
vegetable and animal existence are likely to be affected. We shall, 
therefore, in the first place, take a view, 

1. Of the differences of Vegetation, as liable Jo be influenced by 
Soil, and by other minor Local Circumstances, in the same Climate. 
The most incurious observer, in travelling through a country, must 
be struck with the different vegetation that prevails in different parts 
of the country ; and with the effect which this difference produces 
on the manners and on the health of the inhabitants. Thus, in some 
parts of England, the Apple and the Pear are seen growing spon- 
taneously in every hedge-row ; while, in other parts, apple and pear 
trees will not flourish, even with the utmost care. Some situations 
are favourable to the Oak, others to the Beech, others to the Elm. 
Accordingly, these well-known and beautiful trees predominate in 
some districts, almost to the exclusion of every other, and thus con- 
stitute the leading feature in the landscape. 

These are familiar examples of partial changes among the larger 
vegetables of a country ; while the general vegetation is supposed 
to remain nearly the same. Between such partial change, and the 
complete establishment of a peculiar vegetation, there exists among 
different localities, every possible shade of diversity. Many of 
these differences in vegetation are obviously connected with dif- 
ferences in soil and in situation. Thus, some plants will thrive only 
on a calcareous soil ; as a few of the Orchis tribe in our own coun- 
try, and the Teucrium montanum in Switzerland. Others, like the 
Salsolas and the Salicornias, will only grow in salt marshes. Some 
plants flourish in sea water, some in fresh ; while to others again, 
water, at least in excess, is so prejudicial, that they can exist no- 
where, unless on bare rocks, or in arid deserts. Mountainous situa- 
tions are most favourable to the increase of some plants, while 
others abound in plains. The larger number of plants prefer sun- 
shine, but some are most vigorous in the shade : and others are so im- 
patient of light, that they are found only where there is absolute dark- 
ness. There are, besides, parasitic plants, like the Mistletoe, whose 
nourishment is derived from the plants to which they are attached. 
In short, the varieties in the nature of plants are countless, nor is 
the enumeration of them requisite. What has been staled is more 
than enough to show the wonderful arrangements that have been 
made, to ensure the clothing of every part of the earth's surface 
with vegetable organization. There is not a soil, however barren, 



DISTRIBUTION" OF PLANTS. 183 

nor a rock, however flinty, that has not its appropriate plant; which 
plant has no less wonderfully found its way to the spot adapted for 
it, nay, will perish if removed elsewhere. Saline plants, for in- 
stance, will grow only where saline matters are abundant; plants 
of the marsh, and of the bog, flourish only in marshy and boggy 
ground ; those of the parched desert and of the cloudy mountain, 
each in its fitting locality. Thus the soil and its occupant seem to 
have been made for each other ; and hence one source of that 
astonishing variety exhibited in nature. 

There are still more remarkable deviations among the plants of 
different countries remote from one another; even where the cir- 
cumstances of climate and of soil are in every respect alike. The 
plants of the Cape of Good Hope, for instance, differ exceedingly 
from those of the south of Europe, though the climate and much of 
the soil be not dissimilar. Often, on the same continent, nay, on the 
same ridge of mountains, the plants on the opposite sides have no re- 
semblance. " Thus, in North America, on the east side of the rocky 
mountains, Azaleas, Rhododendrons, Magnolias, Vacciniums, Actoeo.s, 
and Oaks, from the principal features of the landscape ; while on the 
western side of the dividing ridge, these genera almost entirely dis- 
appear, and no longer constitute a striking characteristic of the vege- 
tation."* 

ln general, the plants of America are different from those of the 
old world, except towards the north, as it might be expected from 
the nearer approximation of the two continents, many individuals are 
common to both. The plants of islands, and those growing in isolated 
situations are often quite peculiar. Thus the plants of New Holland, 
with comparatively few exceptions, differ from those of all the rest of 
the world; and, " of sixty-one native species, in the little island of Saint 
Helena, only two or three are to be found in any other part of the 
globe."| These facts are quite inexplicable upon any known prin- 
ciples ; and are calculated to excite a more than ordinary degree of 
attention, as being solely referable to the will of the Great Creator ; 
who has chosen to provide infinite diversity where all might have 
been uniform and monotonous; and has thus rendered more conspi- 
cuous his wisdom, his power, and his goodness. 

2. Of the Influence of Climate on Vegetation. — The climate of a 
place, as has been before shown, independently of minor local causes, 
is influenced chiefly by the two following circumstances: — the Latitude 
of the place ; in other words, the general portion of heat and light 
which it receives from the sun ; — and its height above the surface of 
the sea ; by which circumstance of elevation, the heat at least re- 
ceived from the sun, is liable to be varied as much as by latitude ; 

* Lindley's Introduction to Botany, page 489. 

f See Principles of Geology, by C. Lyell, vol. ii. where this interesting subject 
is considered in detail. 



184 METEOROLOGY. 

but the variation is according to other laws than those which de- 
pend on mere latitude, indeed, according to laws which vary in dif- 
ferent latitudes. 

Every one is acquainted with the general fact of the difference be- 
tween the plants of warm and those of cold countries ; between the 
plants that grow on plains, and those that grow on mountains. Thus, 
'• in the countries lying near the Equator, the vegetation consists of 
dense forests of leafy evergreen trees, Palms, and arborescent Ferns, 
among which are intermingled epiphytal herbs and rigid Grasses. 
There are no verdant meadows, such as form the chief beauty of our 
northern climate, and the lower orders of vegetation, such as Mosses, 
Fungi and Confervas are very rare. As we recede from the Equa- 
tor, the plants above mentioned gradually give way to trees with 
deciduous leaves ; rich meadows appear, abounding with tender herbs; 
the epiphytal Orchidece are no longer met with, and are replaced by 
terrestrial fleshy-rooted species ; Mosses clothe the trunks of aged 
trees ; decayed vegetables are covered with parisitical Fungi ; and 
the waters abound with Confervas. Approaching the Poles, trees 
wholly disappear ; dicotyledonous plants of all kinds become compara- 
tively rare ; and Grasses and cryptogamic plants constitute the chief 
features of the vegetation."* 

Changes not very dissimilar are observed in the vegetation at dif- 
ferent heights on the mountains of warm climates. Thus, at the base 
of the celebrated Peak of Teneriffe, the plants have all the distin- 
guishing characters of those of Africa. There flourish the succulent 
Euphorbia, the Mesembryanthema, Dracaena, &c. : also the Date 
Palm, the Plantain, the Sugar-cane, and the Indian-fig. A little 
higher, grow the Olive tree, the fruit trees of Europe, the Vine, and 
Wheat. Then succeeds the woody region of the mountain ; where 
from the numerous springs the ground is always verdant. In that 
region is seen a profusion of beautiful evergreens: such as various 
species of Laurel, one of Oali, two species of Iron-tree, and Arbutus, 
and several others. Next above is the region of pines, characterised 
by a vast forest of trees resembling the Scottish fir, intermixed with 
Juniper. Then follows a track remarkable for the abundance of a 
species of broom. At last the seenery is terminated by Scrofularia, 
Viola,, a. few Glasses, and cryptogamic plants.f 

The proportions which different groups of plants boar to each 
other, vary exceedingly in different latitudes. An interesting table 
given in the Appendix, slightly altered from Humboldt, exhibits the 
proportional amount of some natural groups o( plants to the whole 
mass of vegetation in the zones mentioned : and will enable the 
reader to understand the relation iA' vegetable tonus to the greater or 
less distance of their place of growth from the Equator, 'flic ar- 

* Lindley*s introduction to Botany, page 4$4, 

f Humboldt. 



DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTS. 185 

rangement is so obvious as scarcely to require explanation. Thus 
in the equatorial zone, between 10° north and 10° south latitude, the 
first group, including Ferns, Lichens, Mosses, and Fungi, constitutes 
on the plains only l-15th, but on the mountains l-5th of the whole 
number of plants that exist in that zone. While in the temperate 
zone the proportion of the first group of plants is at least one-half of 
the whole number, and in the frigid zone, the entire vegetation con- 
sists of plants of that group. The distribution of the other groups 
is equally remarkable. 

From this table we learn many interesting particulars in addition 
to w T hat has been already stated regarding the distribution of plants 
over the surface of the globe. We may notice especially the striking 
difference between the Flora of the Old and that of the New World, 
in corresponding parallels of latitude. These differences, in a great 
many instances, are undoubtedly referable to the unknown causes to 
which we have before alluded. But in other instances, they are ob- 
viously connected with the difference of temperature that prevails 
in the two continents under the same parallel. Before we proceed, 
let us dwell a little longer on the consideration of these beautiful ar- 
rangements. 

In tropical countries alone, beneath a vertical sun, do we see vege- 
tation in all its glory and magnitude. There, the form, the colour, 
and the odour of plants are developed to the utmost ; and where else 
could they be so developed ? where else could the majestic palm rear 
its tow r ering stem, and send forth its gigantic leaves 1 where else 
could we expect to find groves ever verdant, blooming and produc- 
tive? Amidst eternal summer, all is in character ; forests denuded 
of their leaves, and for half the year assuming the appearance of 
death, would in such a climate be perfectly incongruous. But in 
countries remote from the Equator, and in which, during many 
months, the temperature is more or less depressed, a vegetation thus 
incessantly active could not exist nor would it be appropriate. Ac- 
cordingly, the palm tribe, and many of the more distinguishing pro- 
ductions of the Tropics become gradually fewer in number as we 
recede from the Equator, and at last give way entirely to deciduous 
plants ; that is, to plants endued with the power of kybernating, or 
sleeping, as it were, in the colder season ; and which vegetate only 
during the warmer portion of the year. And here we have displayed 
another of those admirable provisions, which at once strike us irre- 
sistibly as being the effect of design ! In Tropical countries, where 
the seasons are uniform, and where there is no cold to injure, the leaf 
buds of plants are without covering or protection, and are freely and 
confidently exposed to the atmosphere. But in climates where the 
seasons change, and where vegetation is liable to be suspended by the 
cold, the leaf buds exhibit a structure remarkably different. Deve- 
loped in the latter end of summer, or autumn, they are almost in- 
variably provided with tegmenta or coverings ; within which, during 

16* 



186 METEOROLOGY. 

their period of torpor they are cradled, safe from cold and from ac- 
cident ! 

As we advanced still further to the north or to the south, where 
the winter becomes more severe and of longer continuance, decidu- 
ous plants in their turn diminish both in number and in magnitude ; 
and after having shown themselves under a variety of stunted forms, 
are at length almost entirely superseded by a few coarse grasses 
and lichens. Yet even here design is apparent. These hardy na- 
tives of the poles are, from the simplicity of their structure, wonder- 
fully adapted to the climate of the region they occupy ; in which 
alone they will flourish, and for which alone, therefore, they have 
been expressly created. 

Though it be generally true that plants will grow only in the soil 
and climate adapted for them ; yet, as if intentionally to evince His 
power, the Great Author of nature has created some manifest excep- 
tions to this rule. All organised beings have been more or less en- 
dowed w T ith the faculty of accommodating themselves to circum- 
stances. In the larger number of plants this faculty scarcely exists; 
but in some it is much stronger ; and in others, constituting the ex- 
ceptions to which we allude, the extent of the accommodating faculty 
is almost incredible. In general, plants that are the natives of pecu- 
liar soils, and of extreme climates, are the most impatient of change ; 
while the natives of ordinary soils, and the temperate climates, have 
a wider range of growth. The exceptions to the rule of adaptation 
are chiefly among plants that are natives of such soils and climates. 
Thus " the Samolus Valerandi is found all over the world, from the 
frozen north to the burning south ; associated here with Birches, and 
similar northern forms, and there mixed with Palms and the genuine 
denizens of the tropics. The number of plants, however, which can thus 
accommodate themselves to all circumstances and climates is limited: 
while those which readily naturalise themselves in climates similar 
to their own, are, on the other hand, numerous. Of the latter, indeed, 
examples present themselves at every step. All the hardy plants, for 
instance, of our gardens may in some sort be considered of this na- 
ture ; for although they do not grow spontaneously in the fields, they 
flourish almost without care in our gardens. The Pine apple has 
gradually extended itself eastward from America, through Africa, in- 
to the Indian Archipelago, where it is now as common as if it were 
a plant indigenous to the soil ; and in like manner the Spices of the 
Indians have become naturalized on the coast of Africa and the 
West India islands.' 1 To this property of naturalizing themselves, 
no doubt, is to be referred, in a variety of instances, the presence of 
the same plants in different countries. For though, as we have just 
stated, the Flora of different countries is generally different, yet in 
almost all instances, some plants exist which arc found in Other coun- 
tries. Thus, " above 350 species are said to be common to Europe 
and North America ; and even among the peculiar features of the 



DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTS. 187 

Flora of New Holland, Mr. Brown recognised 166 European spe- 
cies. The presence of many such strangers may undoubtedly be 
referred to the agency of man and other animals ; to currents in the 
ocean, to winds, and a variety of natural causes." While "the pre- 
sence of others, seems inexplicable on any other supposition than 
that they have been created in the places where they now exist."* 

Hitherto we have considered plants only in relation to the soil and 
to the climate in which they grow ; and have not entered into details 
respecting all the beautiful arrangements, by which their growth has 
been accomplished. The consideration of these arrangements be- 
longs to the Physiologist, the Botanist, and the Geologist, with whose 
duties we wish as little as possible, to interfere. There is T however, 
yet one point of view in which our argument naturally leads us to 
consider vegetation ; namely, as forming the link, by which animals 
are connected with the earth ; in other words, as furnishing to ani- 
mals the means of subsistence. 

One circumstance, which, perhaps more than any other is calcu- 
lated to arrest our attention with respect to vegetable productions in 
general, is their vast profusion in every sense of the term ; whether 
we contemplate their variety, their magnitude, or their number. Thus 
the numerous and varied plants growing in topical climates are 
equally remarkable from their size, the luxuriant foliage, and the ex- 
uberance of their roots and seeds. Let us take, for instance, the 
palm tribe. It has been estimated that there are a thousand species 
of palms ; and though the number actually known to exist is by no 
means so large, yet late discoveries seem to render the estimate not 
improbable. In many of the palm tribe the developement of the 
form, and the quantity of flowers and fruit is altogether extraordinary. , 
Among others, the species which yields the well known Cocoa nuts 
grows to the height of eighty feet; each plant flourishes for a century, 
and, during the greater part of that time, continues to produce an- 
nually at least a hundred of these large nuts. Yet the cocoa nut 
species may be considered as one of the least productive of the palm 
tribe : for every bunch of another species, the Seje palm of the Oro- 
noko, bears as many as 8000 fruit ; while a single spatha of the Date 
palm contains 12,000 flowers ; and in a third species, the Alfonsia 
Amygdalina, there is the enormous number of 207,000 flowers on 
each spatha ; or 600,000 on a single individual plant ! 

In superlative exuberance, however, the Palm tribe must yield to 
the Banana, or plantain, another inhabitant of the tropical countries. 
The fruit of this plant is often a foot in circumference, and seven or 
eight inches long: it is produced in bunches, containing usually from 
160 to 180 fruit; and each bunch weighs from 66 to 88 pounds 
avoirdupois. As Humboldt has remarked ; the small space, there- 

• Lindley, Introduction to Botany, p. 501. 



188 METEOROLOGY. 

fore, of 1000 square feet, on which from thirty to forty Banana plants 
may grow, will, on a very moderate computation afford, in the course 
of a year, 4000 pounds weight of fruit; a produce 133 times 
greater than could be obtained from the same space, if covered with 
wheat; and 44 times greater than if occupied by potatoes. The 
Orange tree may be mentioned as another instance of extraordinary 
fecundity ; thus a single tree at St. Michael's has been known to bear 
in a season 20,000 oranges fit for packing, exclusively of those 
damaged and wasted, amounting to at least one-third more. An ex- 
ample to the same effect, but of a different kind, is the Sugar cane, 
which furnishes an unlimited supply of saccharine matter in its purest 
form ; while various roots, as those of the Cycas Jatropa, and many 
others abound equally in farinaceous matters. 

As we withdraw from the Equator into the regions of hybernating 
plants, vegetation is seen on a much less magnificent scale ; though 
in the temperate climates, and even where we might expect to find 
utter sterility, number, in some degree, compensates for magnitude. 
Thus, instead of the single stupendous tuft of the palm, we have the 
numerous congregated buds of our deciduous trees ; instead of the 
gigantic and solitary grasses of the torrid zone, we have the smaller 
and gregarious varieties. Some of these varieties, as the Cerealia, 
or Corn tribe, with their myriads of seeds, give us an inexhaustible 
supply of farinaceous aliment ; while others, as the Grasses properly 
so called, clothe our meadows with verdure, even to extreme lati- 
tudes ; and are equally productive of matter purely herbaceous. In 
the warmer parts of the temperate zone, the Olive and the Vine af- 
ford the oleaginous and the saccharine principles under a form, dif- 
ferent, but not less useful than the oil and the sugar of the tropics ; 
while in colder parts, various seeds, and hardy fruits, produce an 
ample store of the same valuable articles, though in a condition still 
further modified. 

In the preceding sketch we have intentionally kept out of view 
the existence of animals, that we might here ask the question, Of 
what use is all this amazing exuberance of superfluous matter through- 
out the globe 1 The adaptation of plants to the climates in which they 
flourish is evidently the work of an intelligent Creator. But is this 
apparent waste of materials and of labour to be reconciled with the 
same wise agency ? Surely, the mere existence of vegetation did 
not require such prodigality. Seeds, for instance, need not have been 
enveloped in bulky fruits ; nor need they have been produced by 
myriads: and all that foliage, all those flowers, and roots, in such 
amazing profusion, of what use are they ; why were they so created ' 
Regarding vegetation ;is a thing simply adapted to climate, ami ex- 
isting for its own sake alone, the question scarcely admits o\ a ra- 
tional answer. But, considering at the same time the existence ol 
animals, and viewing these superfluities as the means by which ani- 



DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS. 189 

mal existence is principally upheld, every difficulty vanishes, and the 
splendid design of the whole wonderful scheme becomes at once 
apparent. We are thus brought to the consideration of animal ex- 
istence. 

Section II. 

Of the Distribution of Animals orer the Globe. 

Animals have been so constituted that food is to them indispensable: 
they can, therefore, exist only where their food has been supplied by 
nature. On land, at least in the warm and temperate climates, by 
far the greater proportion of animals derive their subsistence, either 
directly or indirectly, from the vegetable kingdom. For those ani- 
mals that are themselves carnivorous, prey on vegetable feeders 
much oftener than otherwise ; and are thus remotely dependent on 
vegetables. Of the habits of animals living in the sea, and thus con- 
cealed from our view, we know still less; but in general they appear 
to prey on each other, the stronger, as is usual, devouring the weaker. 

We have seen the wonderful diversities that prevail among vege- 
tables, in different situations and climates ; and it may be truly said 
that the diversities among animals are not less numerous, and are 
even more extraordinary. Thus, in every climate and soil, almost 
every herb has its appropriate inhabitant ; some little being, that 
comes into existence, passes its ephemeral life, and dies on that plant; 
to which, therefore, that plant constitutes the world. Nay, in gene- 
ral, even different parts of the same plant have each its separate oc- 
cupants, one feeding on its fruit, another on its flowers, a third on its 
leaves, perhaps a fourth on its very woody core. This almost infinite 
diversity, and infinity of number, are principally confined to the 
smaller animals, or insects. As animals increase in size, the number of 
species as well as of individuals constantly diminishes. Thus, while 
there are hundreds of species of the Beetle tribe, and the individuals 
are countless, there may be considered to be only one Elephant ; and 
while Shrimps are in numbers like sand on the sea-shore, the Whale 
is as much a solitary species. This striking difference with regard 
to numbers has been considered to arise necessarily from a law of 
nature, and in one respect such an explanation is very obvious ; but 
in another point of view, we may contemplate an admirable evi- 
dence of design. It is clear that millions of elephants could not exist, 
if for no other reason, from want of food ; but why should millions 
of beetles exist ? why should these little creatures, — whose life is so 
transitory, that it consists of little more than of being born, and of 
dying, whose structure is so frail as to be liable to be annihilated by 
the slightest accident, who are everywhere surrounded by all sorts 
of enemies, to many of which they constitute a natural prey, — why, 
we ask, in spite of all these obstacles and clangers, should these insig- 



190 METEOROLOGY. 

nificant animals contrive to exist in the numbers we see them ? No 
natural law, surely, will explain the appearance of such multitudes. 
The difficulty requires another solution ; and the only solution that 
can be offered is design — that it was so designed by the Great Author 
of nature. And how has He effected His purpose of multiplying to 
such an extent these little animals? The answer is, simply, by in- 
creasing their fecundity. Had beetles, like elephants, brought forth 
only one young at a time, long ere now, their race would have been 
exterminated ; but being produced by thousands, some of the nume- 
rous offspring chance to escape, and thus the race is perpetuated. 

We shall not dilate further on the arrangements that have been 
made for the existence and preservation of animals, but shall pro- 
ceed to consider their distribution. 

The distribution of animals over the globe may be conveniently 
treated of under the same heads as the distribution of vegetables ; 
and, first : — 

1. Of the Differences existing among Animals that live in similar 
Situations in different Parts of the World. — The dwelling of animals 
in the waters is, perhaps, the most remarkable as regards their lo- 
calities. Now, since, from circumstances formerly stated, the dis- 
tribution of temperature is very different in the sea from what it is 
on land ; and since most aquatic animals prey on each other, and 
consequently in some degree are independent of climate ; the distri- 
bution of such animals over the globe follows laws materially dif- 
ferent from those which regulate the distribution of land animals. 
This distribution of temperature more especially affects the distribu- 
tion of animals in high latitudes ; and must be taken into account 
at the very outset of this part of our inquiry. We shall, therefore, 
state concisely the distribution of land animals, and of sea animals, 
apart from each other. 

The distribution of land animals resembles to a certain extent 
that of vegetables ; for though animals differ from plants, in being 
endowed with the power of locomotion, yet, as the larger number 
of animals are dependent on vegetables for their subsistence, they 
are necessarily confined to those places where their peculiar food 
may be obtained. This limitation of range is most observable in 
the case of the smaller animals. The existence of many kinds of in- 
sects, especially, is intimately connected with that of certain plants. 
In every tribe of animals, however, there are species that occupy 
very different localities. Thus, in the same tribe, some species 
dwell on the mountains, others on the plains; some arc most nu- 
merous on the sea-coast, others live on trees, while there are others 
that burrow beneath the surface of the ground. All these diversities, 
in regard to residence, are probably influenced, like many others, by 
the greater or less degree in which the locality affords the means of 
obtaining subsistence. But, in many animals, there is also a won- 
derful adaptation of structure to the place they inhabit: pro 



DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS. 191 

beyond a doubt, that the distribution of animals has been arranged 
by design ; and that they form but a part of the great symmetrical 
whole of creation. 

In animals that dwell in the water, the same peculiarities of habi- 
tude are observable, as in those that dwell on the land. Thus, it is 
perfectly known that many animals can live only in saltwater: 
others only in fresh. Some prefer the deep and open sea, others 
are met with only in shallow water, or at the mouths of rivers. Of 
those that flock to the coast, some shun turbid water, others burrow 
in the mud. In short, though the habits and adaptations of aquatic 
animals can be less satisfactorily ascertained, there is every reason 
to believe that they are at least as wonderful, as those of the occu- 
pants of the land. 

There is an equally striking diversity in the animals, as in the 
plants, of similar localities and climates in different parts of the 
world. Thus, in the old world, in the analogous climates on the 
north, and on the south of the equator, though many genera exist in 
common, yet the species are totally different. For instance, the 
northern hemisphere possesses the Horse, and the Ass ; while, in the 
south, these species are represented by the Zebra and the Quagga. 
In the southern hemisphere, there also exist many species which are 
quite peculiar ; as the Giraffe, the Cape Buffalo, and a variety of 
animals having the Antelope form. So, likewise, the animals of the 
old and those of the new world are, in general, quite distinct ; un- 
less, perhaps, towards the north, where the two continents approxi- 
mate ; and where, in consequence, there are some species common 
to both. Thus the Elephant, the Rhinoceros, the Hippopotamus, the 
Giraffe, the Camel, the Dromedary, the Horse, and the Ass ; also the 
Lion and the Tiger, and various species of Apes, Baboons, and 
other animals, with which we are familiar in the old world, were 
not found in America. On the other hand, the American species, 
the Lama, and the Peccari ; and among carnivorous animals, the 
Jaguar, or American tiger ; also the Agouti, the Paca, the Coati, 
the Sloth, and others, were equally unknown in the old world. 
Again, the animals of New Holland differ, like its vegetation, not 
only from those of our continent, but from those of all the world 
besides. In New Holland, there are more than forty species of 
marsupial or pouched animals, of which the Kangaroo is that with 
which we have become best acquainted ; while everywhere else, 
there is hardly a known instance of a pouched animal. Nor are 
these differences confined to the more perfect animals. They are 
even more striking as we descend in the zoological scale. Thus 
among birds; the individual species of the Parrot tribe, that are 
found in America, differ altogether from those of Africa ; and those of 
Asia differ from both. The minute and beautiful family of Humming 
birds is peculiar to America. While the species of the common 
Grouse of this country is met with in no part of the known world. 



192 METEOROLOGY. 

From the class of reptiles, may be mentioned the Great Saurian, 
or Lizard tribe. Thus the Crocodile of the Nile is entirely different 
from the Cayman of America; and even from the Gavial of the 
Ganges. In the division of snakes, too, the Boa of India differs 
from the nearly allied Python of America ; and of the poisonous va- 
rieties, the Rattlesnake is peculiar to America, the Cerastes to Africa, 
the Hooded snake to Asia. As we have already stated ; the diver- 
sities among insects are still more numerous and remarkable than 
among the larger animals. To enter into details would be endless ; 
we shall therefore mention only one of the best known and widest 
extended of all the insect tribe, viz. our common Bee. This insect 
did not exist in America, or in New Holland ; though it is found in 
all parts of the old world ; the wax and honey of Europe, Asia, and 
Africa being obtained from species having a close resemblance to 
each other. 

Nor are these differences confined to land animals ; the inhabi- 
tants of the waters are equally diversified. Thus the Whales of the 
northern ocean are quite unlike those of the south ; as are the Seals, 
and other analogous animals in the polar regions. The fishes of 
different seas, also, not only when far apart; but even of some 
which freely communicate, have fish exceedingly dissimilar. Thus 
the fishes of the Arabian Gulf are said to differ entirely from those 
of the Mediterranean ; notwithstanding the proximity of these seas. 
Nor do these remarks apply only to the larger fish in these seas, 
but hold equally with respect to their testaceous and molluscous 
species. 

Such are a few of the more striking facts with regard to the dis- 
tribution of animals in similar climates and localities throughout the 
world. We shall now briefly speak, 

2. Of the Effects of Diversity of Climate on the Distribution of 
Animals. In tropical climates, the qualities of animals, as well as 
those of vegetables, are developed to the utmost ; whence arises 
that harmonious adaptation of all the works of nature, conspicuous, 
indeed, in all climates, but in Tropical climates more especially. 
For, where else than amidst the profuse exuberance of the vegeta- 
tion within the tropics, could the Elephant, the Rhinoceros, the 
Giraffe, and other large quadrupeds find subsistence? Where else 
could we expect to see such birds as the Ostrich and the Cassowary? 
Such reptiles as the Crocodile ? such serpents as the Boa ■ To 
what other part of the world could the magnificent butterflies, the 
enormous beetles and spiders be so appropriate. Even among the 
marine animals of Tropical climates, some display the same won- 
derful enlargement of size. Thus certain species of the Crab and 
Lobster, and various shell-fish, often attain an. enormous magnitude. 
Nor is there a devclopement. of size only, but of every other pro- 
perty in an equal degree. Countries within the tropics exhibit the 
most beautiful forms — the most splendid colours in nature. There, 



DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS. 193 

in short, is the most astonishing display of all those things which 
seem to be entirely ornamental : as, for example, the singular plu- 
mage of the Birds of Paradise — the gaudy liveries of many of the 
Parrot tribe — the extraordinary and diversified forms and colours of 
many insects and shells. 

Not only is there in Tropical climates an assemblage of all the 
concomitants of productiveness, and utility, and embellishment of 
every kind ; in these climates, there is another and not less marked 
demonstration of the power and the wisdom of the great Creator. 
Within the Tropics death, the last, the inevitable scene, assumes a 
character as new and diversified as that of the life it terminates. 
There, rages the implacable ferocity of the Tiger, and of the larger 
beasts of prey ; there, are the fangs of the serpent charged with the 
most malignant venom; there, even the insects are as formidable as 
they are numerous. Nor is this intensity of the destroying power 
incongruous or without an object ; but obviously is in perfect har- 
mony with the rest of creation, and with the design of the Creator. 
The wonderful productiveness of animals in Tropical countries en- 
ders unavoidable some checks against their excessive increase : and 
in devising these, the great Author of Nature has displayed the same 
attributes that are manifest in all his other works. No one who 
seriously reflects can doubt either the wisdom or the benevolence of 
the provision. For why are Tigers and Serpents confined to those 
parts of the world where their existence is not only accordant, but 
where, for one great purpose at least, they are even necessary. 
Surely such limitation could have happened only from design ; and 
the argument is strengthened a hundred fold ; when we contemplate 
the striking display of wisdom and of power exemplified in the 
singular adaptation of structure in these animals, to their peculiar 
habits. Thus how wonderfully appropriate is that of the Tiger ; and 
how extraordinary as well as wonderful that of Serpents ! Who 
(unless he had witnessed the fact) could have believed that the 
animal frame was capable of separating from its juices, and of re- 
taining with impunity, a poison instantly fatal, not only to other ani- 
mals, but to the animal itself; if again mingled with the juices from 
which it had been separated ! 

Nor in all these things is the benevolence of the Deity less con- 
spicuous than his wisdom. All must die ; and death from rapacious 
or venomous animals is probably not in any degree more painful 
than many other modes of death, which we constantly witness. 
There is, in truth, to our own narrow and selfish feelings something 
exceedingly painful in the idea of being torn to pieces by a Tiger, 
or stung to death by a Rattlesnake; but how many thousands of 
little mice are destroyed by cats ? and how many myriads of unfor- 
tunate flies are poisoned by spiders, every day we live 1 and yet we 
hardly commiserate them. The question, therefore, is simply a 
question of degree ; and viewing the existence and the destruction 

17 



194 METEOROLOGY. 

of animals, as they ought to be viewed, on the great scale, we find 
that the whole is perfectly in unison. While in temperate climates 
we have cats and spiders, designed as checks on over-productive- 
ness ; amidst the grandeur and the luxurious developement of the 
Tropics, the same wise purpose is executed by the Tiger and by the 
Rattlesnake. 

As we advance from the Equator into the temperate climates, the 
size of animals in general, like that of vegetables, becomes gradually 
smaller. Like the vegetables, too, the animals of temperate climates 
are more gregarious than within the Tropics. Hence number, as 
among vegetables, compensates in some degree for diminished mag- 
nitude. The two kingdoms of nature therefore are beautifully ana- 
logous ; for the gregarious grasses, which, as we before observed, 
form so marked a feature in the vegetation of temperate climates, 
constitute in one shape or other the principal food of the gregarious 
tribes of animals. Thus the whole cattle tribe — The Ox, the Sheep, 
the Goat ; the different varieties of Deer ; the Rabbit and Hare ; 
also the Horse and the Ass ; with a multitude of other well-known 
animals, of a similar character, are natives chiefly of temperate cli- 
mates, and obtain their nourishment almost entirely from the grasses. 
Among birds, the numerous species of the Gallinaceous, or Fowl 
tribe, may be said to derive their food from the same source. There- 
fore, as regards the existence of animals, the gramineous tribe of 
plants is more important than perhaps any other ; and could not be 
annihilated, without the destruction of the present order of living 
beings. 

As further examples of animal species indigenous to temperate 
climates, may be mentioned the Canine species and those allied to 
it, most of which are more or less carnivorous ; also the Hog, and a 
variety of other animals that need not be here enumerated. The 
Hog tribe, as is well known, are omniverous ; but in their natural 
state, they feed principally on the seeds and roots of plants. Among 
birds peculiar to temperate climates are various tribes of Water-fowl 
that subsist on fish and on insects. Of the smaller land birdsj the 
various Songsters offer a remarkable contrast to those of similar form 
within the Tropics ; not only from their more melodious notes, but 
from the simple colouring of their feathers. In temperate countries 
the Insects are still exceedingly multiplied; though, in general, like 
the other animals, they are much smaller in size than those within 
the Tropics ; their forms, their colours, and other peculiarities also 
are much less remarkable. 

As we advance toward the Poles, the animals of temperate cli- 
mates are observed gradually to decline in number. The vegetable 
feeders become reduced to a few hardy species; and at length in the 
remote north and south scarcely any vegetable feeders remain. So 
far ;is shrubbery plants continue to grow in these inhospitable re- 
gions, individuals of the Squirrel tribe find subsistence on their seeds 



DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS. 195 

and roots. But the most remarkable herbivorous animal is the Rein- 
deer; whose principal food is afforded by nature in a species of moss 
peculiar to very cold climates. Those that exist beyond, are either 
carnivorous or piscivorous. The Arctic Fox and the Bear are fami- 
liar instances, as terminating the Zoological series, viewed in con- 
nexion with the influence of climate. 

We have, in the last place, to notice what is most remarkable in 
the distribution of Marine animals. 

For the reasons before stated, the general temperature of the 
ocean differs considerably from that of the land. Owing to this dif- 
ference of temperature, and to the peculiar mode of subsistence of 
marine animals, which find their prey chiefly in the waters they in- 
habit; the distribution of these animals varies much, as compared 
with the distribution of animals that are entirely terrestrial ; parti- 
cularly within the frigid zone. It is true, indeed, that in all climates, 
the denizens of peculiar localities, as fresh water species and those 
that resort to the shallows on the coast, are influenced by the climate 
nearly as much as land animals : and within the Tropics, this influ- 
ence extends in some degree even to the species that dwell on the 
wide ocean. But far to the north, and to the south, such species are 
influenced in a manner altogether different. Thus the largest of 
known animals, the Whale, and of course those other animals that 
become its prey, roam through the utmost Polar seas; where on land 
the intensity of the cold would prevent the existence of any animal 
whatever. In that climate the whale is enabled to live, solely on 
account of the greater warmth of the Polar ocean, as has been for- 
merly explained. Among the larger inhabitants of the ocean in 
Tropical climates, may be mentioned the Shark tribe; which in re- 
spect of ferocity and voraciousness, may be classed with the tiger, 
or any kindred species on land. The influence of climate on marine 
animals is further shown, as we have said, by the enormous size of 
many of the Tropical shell-fish and mollusca. The colouring of 
these and also of other productions of the Equatorial seas, often ex- 
hibits so much lustre and beauty, as to rival the most splendid of the 
feathered race. In temperate climates, and from the equal tempera- 
ture of the sea, even within the frigid zone ; it is remarkable that 
fish, like terrestrial animals, are much disposed to be gregarious. 
The shoals of Herring, Mackarel, and other well known visitants of 
our coast, are familiar examples of the gregarious tendency. The 
Salmon and the Sturgeon may be adduced as instances of fish inha- 
biting chiefly the rivers of the temperate and cold countries. While 
in the same climates, instead of the magnificent Pearl oyster of the 
Tropics, there appears our common Oyster, so diminutive and un- 
sightly, yet so profitable to man. 

We have thus seen that animals, like plants, have in general been 
adapted to particular climates. The numerous cold-blooded animals 
of the Tropics — even the warm-blooded Tiger itself, amid the Polar 



196 METEOROLOGY. 

snows would instantly perish. The Arctic bear would be not less 
unable to live, under the scorching rays of a vertical sun. Yet 
though adaptation to one climate be the general law regarding ani- 
mals as well as plants ; some species of animals have as remarkably 
as some species of plants, the faculty of accommodating themselves 
to all climates. These species, like the plants similarly endowed, are 
for the most part natives of temperate climates ; the transition from 
such climates to either extreme, being much less violent than from 
one extreme to the other. Thus our domestic animals, that have 
been successively introduced into the New World at various periods 
since its discovery, are now, in incredible numbers, spread over the 
whole of that vast continent, from Canada to Paraguay. The greatest 
increase has been of the Horse, the Ox, the Sheep, the Goat, the 
Dog, the Cat, and the Hog. The Rat, too, though an unwelcome 
intruder, has been not the least prolific. The different varieties of 
domestic Poultry have multiplied to an equal extent. Even insects 
have been introduced, and spread in like manner, as is well known 
to horticulturists. 

Like plants, most animals also are readily domesticated, and thrive 
in climates similar to those of which they are natives. The most 
striking instance is the Reindeer; so lately as in the year 1773 in- 
troduced into Iceland, and now exceedingly numerous in the interior 
of that country. From these powers of accommodation to climate, 
from the agency of man, and from accidental causes ; the distribu- 
tion of the larger animals over the globe has, in comparatively re- 
cent times, been very much modified. Nor is there any reason to 
believe that the distribution of these animals is yet stationary ; but, 
on the contrary, that their distribution will undergo still further 
changes. 

Among the more remarkable habits of animals, may be noticed 
the migratory propensities of certain species. The migration of land 
animals is, of course, always much limited, and may be entirely pre- 
vented by natural obstacles — the asperities of the earth's surface — 
sands — deep rivers — or other large accumulations of water. But 
many birds and even insects, possessing powerful locomotion, and 
whose course is through the air, may literally be said to follow the 
sun in their migratory progress. It is hardly necessary to state, as 
examples, the birds of passage, so well known as the Swallow and 
the Cuckoo. These birds during the summer months visit our 
northern climate, and feed on insects, whose multiplication would 
otherwise be boundless. Having fulfilled their office hero: on the 
declination of the sun, they again retire to the south; and are sue- 
ceeded by different birds from countries still further north. Such 
are the Woodcock and others, which ('scape to our shores from the 
rigorous cold of a Polar winter. Nor is migration confined to the 
higher classes of animals. The wonderful powers of flight possessed 
by many insects, enable them to travel over an immense extent oi 



DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS. 197 

country. The Locust and the Ant tribe are familiar examples. 
These insects occasionally migrate in countless swarms from the 
lands to which they are indigenous, and lay waste others far re- 
mote. 

Equally remarkable is that habit of animals termed Hybernation. 
Like the plants of temperate climates, some animals have the faculty 
of passing the colder season of the year in a state of sleep. The 
Hedgehog and the Dormouse may be mentioned as examples of qua- 
drupeds possessing this faculty. Additional instances might be given 
in all the classes of animals. Nearly allied to Hybernation, is that 
remarkable instinct which guides many of the inferior animals to 
deposite their eggs in the earth, or in some other place of safety ; that 
they may be preserved during the season of diminished temperature. 
This instinct is particularly observable in insects whose lives are 
ephemeral, or are, at the utmost, prolonged for a summer. 

There is yet another circumstance that remains to be noticed, as 
being connected with the adaptation of animals to the climates in 
which they live ; namely, the Clothing or covering with w r hich they 
have been supplied by nature. Every one is acquainted with the 
general fact, that wool, fur, eider-down, and similar articles, are ob- 
tained for the most part, not from the copious source of every super- 
fluous production, the countries within the tropics, but from the cold, 
and comparatively unprolific regions of the temperate and of the 
frozen zones ; where they have constituted the appropriate vesture 
of different animals. Perhaps, in the whole range of creation there 
is not anything more calculated to excite our admiration. However 
we may view these means of guarding animals from being injured 
by the cold ; whether as a part of that conservative faculty with 
which animals have been endowed, and by which their existence is 
maintained ; or as an immediate act of Providence ; still the adapta- 
tions are so striking and obvious, as to render it impossible to doubt 
for a moment, that they have all been contrived for the purpose 
which is accomplished ; and that they are the results of foreknow- 
ledge and of design. 

We have thus given a rapid sketch of the distribution of animals 
over the globe. In this sketch we have endeavoured to point out 
the wonderful adaptations of the several classes of animals to the 
circumstances in which they are placed ; together with the beautiful 
symmetry and equilibrium exhibited in zoology, not less than in the 
arrangements of inanimate matter. Throughout we have inten- 
tionally, and as far as was possible, avoided those details, the con- 
sideration of which belongs to other departments. But it has been 
our aim to state such prominent facts, as appeared best calculated 
for the elucidation of our argument. In particular, it has been our 
desire to show — how number among the weak is made to compen- 
sate with magnitude among the strong; how exuberance in one spe- 
cies is made to contribute to the existence of another ; how orna- 

17* 



198 METEOROLOGY. 

ment and boundless profusion characterise the countries within the 
tropics, while the temperate climates are not less distinguished by 
utility and capacity for change ; how, even in the rigorous and bar- 
ren neighbourhood of the Poles, where life becomes a struggle for 
existence, animals have been expressly furnished with clothing ap- 
propriate to these regions ; — in short, we have endeavoured to de- 
monstrate, how every animal, in every climate, has its day ; and by 
some peculiar contrivance, has been enabled to maintain its rank in 
creation, and to assist in preserving the general equilibrium. 

Hitherto we have considered the works of nature without reference 
to Man. For aught we can see to the contrary, they might all have 
existed, and every arrangement and operation might have been 
very nearly, if not exactly, the same as at present ; though man had 
never been called into being. But still, for a moment longer, keeping 
man's existence out of view ; let us, as under a former division of 
this Treatise, inquire, what would have been the use of all this ela- 
borate design, without an ulterior object. Would an intelligent 
Creator have made such a world, and have left it thus incomplete I 
It is evident that the other beings inhabiting this earth, live and die, 
without in the slightest degree comprehending the vast system of 
which they constitute a part. Hence they are merely unconscious 
agents, from which their Maker, while he has furnished them with 
the instincts necessary to their existence, and has awarded equal 
justice to all, has yet chosen to withhold the privelege of reason. 
That a Creator, evidently as benevolent as he is wise, might, for his 
own gratification, have made such a world, and without any other 
inhabitants, is indeed possible. But, even admitting that possibility, 
the probability surely is, that he would not there have finally " rested 
from his labour." His benevolence would have prompted him to 
communicate to other beings a portion of the gratification, which he 
himself is supposed to derive from the contemplation of his works. 
In the beautiful world w 7 hich he had created, he would have wished 
to see one being at least, capable of appreciating to a certain extent 
his design and his objects. Such is a plain inference deducible 
from the manifest attributes of the Creator; and what is the fact '. 
Is not man such a being as we have supposed ? Throughout the 
world, though perfectly independent of him, is there not a clear 
foretoken of his existence? Has he not been placed at the head of 
that world, so obviously prepared for him. and thus constituted "the 
Minister and Interpreter of nature?' Surely no one will be inclined 
to doubt that such is the situation of man in the world. Equally 
undeniable, is the striking accordance of those deductions from the 
view of external objects, with what is written of the origin o\ man 
by the sacred historian: "and Cod said, that it (the world which he 
had prepared) was good. And God said, Let us make man in our 
own image, after our own likeness, (that is to say, endowed with 
reason and with the power of reflection). And let him have 



POSITION AND PROSPECTS OF MAN. 199 

dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and 
over the cattle, and over every creeping thing, that creepeth on the 
earth." 

We thus arrive at another, and to us the final step in the great 
design of the Omnipotent : the creation and the faculties of Man. 



Section III. 
Of the present Position and future Prospects of Man. 

The consideration of the faculties of man, and of his position in the 
world he inhabits, belongs, in all its details, to another department. 
We advert to these subjects here, with the view only of com- 
pleting our sketch of the physical relations of animated beings. The 
observations we have to offer will be comprised under two heads: — 
as to the means, by which man has acquired and maintains the 
ascendency he enjoys : — as to the conclusions to be drawn, from 
man's elevated position, as from his superior intellectual character. 

With regard to the means by which man has acquired and main- 
tains his ascendency, it may be observed, that these means are 
quite peculiar; and far from being such, as at first, perhaps, we 
might deem conducive to such an object : though when once known 
and understood, the beautiful design and harmony they evince,, 
immediately become apparent. 

The supremacy of man has not been the result of his own personal 
strength, nor is it so upheld. On the contrary, many animals are 
larger and more powerful than he is ; while few of his size, are na- 
turally so incapable of self-defence ; or during so long a period suffer 
from the dependent helplessness of infancy and of old age. Neither 
is his frame superior in external adaptation to climate : for while 
nature has furnished other animals with clothing appropriate to 
the temperature in which they live, man has been brought into 
being absolutely naked ; and moreover remains so, in every climate 
he inhabits, from the Equator to the Poles. Lastly, the pre-eminence 
of 'man has not been owing to his more extensive range of diet; or 
to his greater ability for assimilation : for though man be omnivo- 
rous in one sense of the term, he is not omnivorous according to the 
application of the term to other animals ; that is to say, man does 
not eat indiscriminately of every kind of aliment, in the state in 
which it is afforded by nature ; for even in his rudest condition, he 
adopts some process of cookery. How then has man gained the high 
station which he occupies 1 The answer is simply — by his Reason. 
Man has been created a reasonable being ; and this endowment am- 
ply compensates to him for the want of the animal requisites of 
strength — for deficiency of natural covering — and for his restricted 
ability in assimilating his food. By his reason he is enabled to com- 



200 METEOROLOGY. 

mand the strength of the elephant ; to choose from every production 
of nature whatever is adapted for his clothing, and thus to array 
himself according to his pleasure, or the exigences of the climate in 
which he resides ; to extract wholesome nourishment from the most 
unpromising, even from the most deleterious articles. There was no 
necessity, therefore, why man should himself be as unwieldy as an 
elephant ; or be encumbered with any vestures that in some situa- 
tions might be oppressive ; or be able to digest, without culinary pre- 
paration, any coarse and intractable substances. Thus, mere animal 
endowments not being requisite, the Creator's wisdom has been dis- 
played in another manner, and with a wider scope. In furtherance 
of his design, He has limited the bulk of the human species to that 
happy medium, combining strength with convenience ; and to an 
organization delicate and sensitive in the highest degree, but never- 
theless accommodating, He has superadded a form at once peculiar, 
appropriate, and beautiful ! 

When speaking of temperate climates, we remarked, that they 
seemed to be characterised by the utility of their productions ; and 
that the plants and animals of these climates, generally possessed 
greater powers of accommodation than those of either of the extreme 
climates. Now Man, by an express arrangement of his Maker, has 
apparently been constituted a native of temperate climates ; and only 
in these climates can his powers be said to be completely developed. 
Within the tropics, indeed, human existence is flourishing ; for there 
the immediate bounty of Providence affords to man a copious and 
admirably adapted nutriment. Yet in the midst of that profusion, 
and without any adequate motive to call forth exertion, his reason 
too often languishes ; while his animal tendencies predominate ; and 
his life is spent in apathy and in sensual gratifications. On the other 
hand, under the cheerless sky of the frigid zone, imperfectly nourished 
by scanty and unsuitable food, the powers of his mind, like those of 
his body, are stunted ; or are engaged solely in combating the rigours 
of his situation. But in the temperate climates the evil consequences 
of both these extremes are avoided, while the beneficial influences of 
climate remain. Urged by the stimulus of necessity, and at the same 
time having at his command the astonishing capability of nature, 
man is, in temperate climates, surrounded by motives of every kind, 
and his faculties thus attain their utmost devclopemcnt. As familiar 
examples of the effect of this expansion of the human reason, let us 
view man under the three aspects to which wc have before alluded: 
namely, with reference to his strength, his food, and his clothing, in- 
clusive of his habitation. 

In the first place, with regard to his strength. The strength of 
man is not only that which is his own, almost infinitely magnified by 
ingenious mechanical devices of every kind, and o( every decree, 
up to tin* stupendous agency of steam j man has, moreover, subdued 
to his service ninny of the larger animals, while those which lie can- 






POSITION AND PROSPECTS OF MAN. 201 

not so appropriate, he destroys. As weapons, he wields every in- 
strument offensive and defensive, from the rude but effective club or 
arrow, to the warlike engines to which he has applied the disco- 
very of gunpowder. Whatever his wants require, he obtains by 
tools; from the humble spade, to that perfection of machinery, which 
almost rivals the operations of intelligence itself. In the next place, 
view man with reference to his food : what wonders has not his 
reason enabled him to achieve among the fellow inhabitants of his 
own temperate climate. In the vegetable kingdom, let us consider 
the astonishing mutations and increase of the cerealia, or corn tribes ; 
the transformation of the sour and forbidding Crab into the rich and 
fragrant Apple ; of the harsh and astringent Sloe into the delicious 
Plum ; of the coarse and bitter sea-side Brassica into the nutricious 
and grateful Cauliflower : all which changes, and numerous others 
of a like kind, have been effected by man. Nor have the transfor- 
mations which he has produced among animals been less wonderful 
than those among vegetables. All the numerous varieties of cattle, 
of sheep, of horses, of dogs, of poultry, and of all the other animals 
reared as food, or for any purpose domesticated, have sprung from 
a few wild and unattractive species ; and have been made what they 
are, in a great degree, by his intervention. Moreover, the most use- 
ful of these varieties of animals have been transported by man into 
every region of the globe, to which he has himself been able to pene- 
trate. Lastly, in the clothing and habitations of man, the surpassing 
influence of his reason is equally conspicuous. For covering his 
naked body, a surface of considerable extent is necessary ; larger, 
indeed, than is presented by any natural texture, unless, perhaps, by 
the skins of other animals, or by the leaves of some plants ; which 
therefore, in the rudest state of society, usually constitute his only 
dress. But by the art of weaving, he has been enabled to produce gar- 
ments of any size, and from materials that would seem the least fitted 
for such conversion. Thus man can not only clothe himself in any 
manner, and according to the temperature of the climate in which he 
lives; but he can associate with the articles of his dress every spe- 
cies of ornament which his fancy may dictate. His choice of mate- 
rials for the construction of dwellings is not less extensive than that 
of his clothing. As climate and other circumstances may require, 
he abides in the humble cabin, or in the splendid palace; in the tem- 
porary hut, or in the enduring castle, formed to withstand alike the 
tempest of war, and of the elements. 

Such is man, and such are a few of those great changes in this 
world, which, under the guidance of his reason, he has had the power 
to accomplish. And what a splendid evidence of design and of pre- 
concerted arrangement on the part of the great Creator is thus ex- 
hibited, by viewing the inherent properties of matter, and its various 
conditions, with reference to the works of man. Had water, for 
instance, not been constituted as it is, man could never have formed 



202 METEOROLOGY. 

the steam-engine. Had not the productions of the temperate climates 
been formed with that capability for change, by which they are so 
much distinguished, man could never have so moulded them to his 
uses, by altering their character. There was no reason why such 
properties should have been communicated ; there was even no rea- 
son why the objects in which these properties exist, should have been 
created. But they have been so created ; and what are we to infer ? 
No one surely will contend that they have been the result of chance, 
or have been created without an object. They must therefore have 
been created with design ; and if with design — most obviously with 
design having reference to the being man, not yet in existence. 

Thus far have we considered the state at which the earth has ar- 
rived, and man, an animal endowed with reason, placed as its chief 
inhabitant. But we may yet extend our view to the prospects in 
futurity. 

We have seen that this earth has not suddenly emerged from chaos 
to its present condition ; but that by a succession of violent and dis- 
ruptive changes, it has been progressively brought into different con- 
ditions, and progressively tenanted by higher orders of beings. We, 
the last of the series, in our own creation and in the faculties with 
which we have been endowed, behold the most striking exemplifica- 
tion of the wisdom, and of the power of the Deity. But does the great 
design abruptly terminate here? Has this earth arrived at the ulti- 
mate stage of its existence 1 Have its inhabitants attained the utmost 
perfection of which they are capable ? Are there no further con- 
vulsions, and still higher orders of beings in contemplation ? The an- 
swers to these questions are known only to the great Author of the uni- 
verse, and concern us not. There is one question, however, connected 
with this subject, in which we are deeply and personally interested — 
What is to become of man ? Is the being who, surveying nature, re- 
cognises to a certain extent, the great scheme of the universe ; but 
who sees infinitely more which he does not comprehend, and which 
he ardently desires to know; — is he to perish like a mere brute — all 
his knowledge useless ; all his most earnest wishes ungratified ? How 
are we to reconcile such a fate with the wisdom — the goodness, — the 
impartial justice — so strikingly displayed throughout the world by its 
Creator 1 Is it consistent with any one of these attributes, thus to 
raise hopes in a dependent being, which are never to be realized ? 
thus to lift, as it were, a corner of the veil — to show this being a 
glimpse of the splendour beyond — and after all to annihilate him 7 
With the character and attributes of the benevolent Author o\' the 
universe, as deduced from his works, such conceptions are absolutely 
incompatible. The question then recurs — What is to become of 
man? That he is mortal, like his fellow creatines, sad experience 
tenches him; but does he, like them, die entirely? Is there no part 
of him, that surviving the general wreck, is reserved tor a higher 
destiny? ('an that, within man. which reasons like his immortal 



POSITION AND PROSPECTS OF MAN. 203 

Creator — which sees and acknowledges His wisdom, and approves 
of his designs, be mortal like the rest ? Is it probable, nay, is it pos- 
sible, that what can thus comprehend the operations of an immortal 
Agent, is not itself immortal? 

Thus has reasoned man in all ages ; and his desires and his feel- 
ings, his hopes and his fears, have all conspired with his reason, to 
strengthen the conviction, that there is something within him which 
cannot die. That he is destined, in short, for a future state of ex- 
istence, where his nature will be exalted, and his knowledge perfected; 
and where the great design of his Creator, commenced and left im- 
perfect here below, will be completed. 



BOOK III. 



OF THE CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION I PARTICULARLY OF THE CHEMICAL 
PROCESS OF DIGESTION ; AND OF THE SUBSEQUENT PROCESS BY WHICH 
VARIOUS ALIMENTARY SUBSTANCES ARE ASSIMILATED TO, AND BECOME 
COMPONENT PARTS OF, A LIVING BODY. 

Having in the foregoing pages, given a summary view of the 
Chemical properties of bodies not organized, and of the laws of their 
union; having also considered the general relations of inanimate 
matter and of organized beings, on the great scale in which they are 
offered to us by nature, together with the present, position and future 
prospects of man ; we now proceed, in the last place, to inquire more 
particularly into the means by which organization is accomplished ; 
or, in other words, to give a summary view of those chemical pro- 
perties, and laws of union, by which organized beings are distinguish- 
ed from inorganic matters. 



CHAPTER I. 

OF THE NATURE AND COMPOSITION OF ORGANIZED BODIES IN GERERAL, AS 
COMPARED WITH INORGANIC MATTERS. 

" A living being considered as an object of chemical research, is 
a laboratory, within which a number of chemical operations are con- 
ducted ; of these operations, one chief object is to produce all those 
phenomena, which taken collectively are denominated Life ; while 
another chief object is to develope gradually the corporeal machine 
or Laboratory itself, from its existence in the condition of an atom. 
as it were, to its utmost state of perfection. From this point of utmost 
perfection, the whole begins to decline as gradually as it had been 
developed ; the operations are performed in a manner less and less 
perfect, till at length the being ceases to live: and the elements of 
which it is composed, again set free, obey the general laws oi' inor- 
ganic nature."* 

Such is the history of organic existence ; nor, though the periods 
of devclopement and of decay be infinitely varied in d liferent spe- 

* Berzclius, Trait6 dc Chimie, torn. v. p. 1. 



COMPOSITION OF ORGANIZED BODIES. 205 

cies, does a single individual remain for a moment stationary; but 
all, sooner or later, transcend their prime, and finally share the com- 
mon lot of dissolution. 

That peculiar principle or principles, which under some condition 
or other, exists in all organized beings, and by which they are dis- 
tinguished from inanimate matter, has received various appellations. 
In the present inquiry these principles may be viewed as agents : and 
to discriminate them from Heat, Electricity, and other agents or in- 
organic matters, they may be denominated organic agents. In con- 
ducting our investigations into the nature of these principles or 
agents, our difficulty will be much lessened, by endeavouring pre- 
viously to have a clear understanding of what these agents actually 
do. We shall, therefore, in the first place, give a short sketch, 

1. Of Organic Bodies considered as Chemical Compounds. — In their 
well-marked forms no two things perhaps can be conceived to offer a 
stronger contrast, than the two great divisions of organic bodies — 
vegetables and animals. Yet these two kinds of bodies so gradually 
approximate, and seem even to coalesce, that it is not possible to 
say where the one ends and the other begins. The same remark 
applies to the chemical composition of vegetables and animals. 
Vegetable substances, in general, contain essentially no more than 
three elements, Hydrogen, Carbon, and Oxygen ; while animal sub- 
stances usually involve a fourth, Azote. Yet there are many vegeta- 
ble substances, of whose composition, azote forms a considerable part; 
while certain animal substances are entirely wanting in that princi- 
ple. It is obvious, therefore, that the mere chemical composition of 
a substance, at least its essentially consisting of three or four of 
these elements, will not enable us to determine whether it be vegeta- 
ble or animal ; and that, in many substances, when this point hap- 
pens to be doubtful or unknown, we must have other data before we 
can form a conclusion. Besides these four elements, of which all 
organic substances are essentially compounds; other principles 
generally enter into their composition. These other principles are 
in very minute quantity, and are not so essential to the actual exist- 
ence of organic substances, as the four constituent elements above 
named; yet, however minute the quantity, the influence of these 
other principles seems to be most important ; they are, Sulphur, 
Phosphorus, Chlorine, Fluorine, Iron, Potassium, Sodium, Calcium, 
Magnesium, and probably more besides. These principles, have, by 
most chemists, been deemed extraneous, or foreign to organized bo- 
dies ; but we shall presently show, that there is good reason to be- 
lieve, that the office of such additional principles, though different 
from that of the constituent elements, is nevertheless most remarka- 
ble. These four elements, along with the additional principles, are, 
in the present state of our knowledge, alike denominated, The Ulti- 
mate Elements of organized bodies ; but hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, 
and azote, may be termed, for sake of distinction, the essential ele- 

18 



206 CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION. 

merits ; and sulphur, phosphorus, &c. the incidental elements of such 
bodies. The combinations of these ultimate elements with one ano- 
ther, according to certain laws, produce what are denominated the 
Immediate, or Proximate Elements of organized bodies. Of these 
proximate elements, Sugar, Oil, Albumen, &c. are familiar examples. 

Perhaps it may be stated as a general law, that no substance, en- 
tering into the composition of a living plant or animal, is so pure as 
to be capable of assuming a regularly crystallized form. Instead, 
therefore, of being denned by straight lines and angles, almost all 
solid organized substances are more or less rounded, and their inti- 
mate structure is anything but crystallized. The composition of 
organized fluids is equally heterogeneous ; and though the basis of 
nearly every one of such fluids be water, many of them contain a 
variety of other matters. 

Organized bodies may be ranged under two general classes ; 
those which though they do not crystallize, while in the living plant 
or animal, can yet, by various processes, be so far separated from 
extraneous matters, as to be obtained in a state of purity, and thus 
be made to assume the crystallized form ; and those which cannot 
under any circumstances be made to crystallize. The first sub- 
stance of the crystallizable class which we shall notice, is Sugar. 

Sugar has been ascertained, and is now generally admitted, to 
consist of three essential elementary principles — hydrogen, oxygen, 
and carbon ; it is besides remarkable, that the hydrogen and the 
oxygen in sugar are exactly in the proportion to each other, in 
which they form water. It has been, therefore, with great proba- 
bility inferred, that these two elements are really so associated in 
sugar ; consequently, that sugar is a compound of water and car- 
bon ; or, in the language of Chemists, is a Hydrate of Carbon. We 
cannot, however, produce artificially either sugar, or any other or- 
ganic compound, by directly combining their elements; because we 
cannot bring the elements together, precisely in the requisite states 
and proportions. Still, there is no doubt that if the elements could be 
so brought together, the compound thence resulting, would be the 
same as the natural compound. For, as hereafter we shall endeavour 
to show, the organic agent does not change the properties of the ele- 
ments; but simply combines them in modes which we cannot imitate. 

Vinegar is another well known proximate principle, which not 
only forms crystallized compounds readily with many other bodies ; 
but in its most concentrated state, is itself also crystallized. Now. 
it is not less worthy of note than in the case of sugar, that vinegar, 
altogether so different from sugar in its properties, is generally con- 
sidered to be precisely analogous in its composition : that is to say, 
vinegar is a binary compound of water and carbon : but the pro- 
portions of water and carbon arc different from those that form 
sugar. There is however, a characteristic distinction between these 
two substances, inasmuch as vinegar can be formed artificially; 



COMPOSITION OF ORGANIZED BODIES. , 207 

not indeed, any move than sugar, by directly associating its ele- 
ments ; but, by the process of fermentation, and by other means, 
this acid may be formed from sugar and from the allied substances 
to be presently mentioned. Yet we cannot work backwards, and 
by any artificial process again form sugar from vinegar ; though 
the organic agent seems to possess this power, as we shall have 
occasion to notice more particularly hereafter. 

We now proceed to consider the composition of a totally different 
class of substances, which under no circumstances, natural or artifi- 
cial, ever assume the crystallized form; and the structure of which, 
in the common and strict sense of the term, may be said to be 
organized. Starch is a well known instance of these uncrystalliza- 
ble or organized substances. 

The amylaceous or starchy principle is obtained in slightly modi- 
fied states, from a great variety of vegetables, but principally from the 
seeds of the Cerealia. Even by the unassisted eye, starch is seen 
to be composed of minute particles; and when these particles are 
examined with a microscope, they are found to be granules more or 
less rounded, and without the least trace of crystallization. These 
granules are conceived to be moulded in the cellules of the texture 
by which they are formed ; for it would appear that their state when 
first secreted and deposited in the cellules is semifluid ; and that the 
excess of water is subsequently removed. Raspail and Dumas have 
shown that each of these little grains is covered with a smooth in- 
tegument, not affected by w T ater at the common temperatures; with- 
in which integument is enclosed a substance rather more soluble. 
According to some chemists, this interior substance has an analogy 
with gum; but probably it is only a variety of amylaceous matter. 
Berzelius affirms that starch when burnt, leaves about .23 per cent, 
of residuum, consisting entirely of the phosphates. But when this 
residuum is abstracted and allowed for, the essential composition of 
starch is found to coincide very nearly with that of sugar ; that is 
to say, starch is composed of water and carbon, and the proportions 
of their combination are very nearly the same as in sugar. Here a 
question arises ; How does it happen that substances which appear 
to resemble each other so closely in their composition, should yet 
differ so widely in their sensible properties 1 This question we shall 
soon consider. But in the mean time, we shall make a few remarks 
on another principle of organized bodies, still very different, in its 
sensible properties, from the three of which we have spoken, but 
apparently of a similar constitution. This fourth principle is the 
woody fibre, or Lignin, as it is termed by chemists. 

The woody fibre, though assuming a great variety of appearances 
in different plants, and including very different incidental matters ; 
has nevertheless, in all those plants in which it has yet been exa- 
mined, been found to possess very nearly the same essential com- 
position ; or to consist of equal weights of water and of carbon. 



208 



CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION". 



Such, at least, is the composition of woods, so very different as the 
Box and the Willow, the Oak and the Beech ; and these are the 
chief, if not the whole, of the woods which, we believe, have yet 
been analyzed. Hence, it is perhaps not unreasonable to suppose 
that every variety of Lignin has a similar composition. All woods, 
when burnt, leave a greater or less quantity of incidental mineral 
residuum, in the shape of ashes; the nature of which, as above ob- 
served, differs exceedingly in different sorts of wood. 

The following Table presents a summary view of the composi- 
tion of the four organic principles which we have considered in the 
preceding paragraphs. It is offered, not only as an example of the 
boundless subject of the Chemistry of Organization, but as an in- 
stance of the mode by which we conceive, that department of 
Chemistry may be best elucidated. 



Substances Crystallizabk. 


Substances not Crystallizabk. 


Sugar, from 


Carbon. 


Water. 


Starch, Arrow- 


Carbon. 


Water. 










Starch - - 


36.20 


63.80 


root in its 






from Honey 


36.36 


63.63 


ordinary 






East India 






state - - 


36.4 


63.6 


Moist - - 


40.88 


59.12 


from Wheat, 






Beet root and 






in its ordi- 






Maple - - 


42.10 


57.90 


nary state 


37.5 


62.5 


English Re- 






ditto, ditto, 






fined - - - 


41.5 to 42.5 


58.5 to 57.5 


dried at 






Pure Sugar 






212° - - 


42.8 


57.2 


Candy - - 


42.85 


57.15 








Acetic Acid - 


47.05 


52.95 


Lignik, in its or- 
dinary state 












of dryness 


42.7 


57.3 








from Willow, 












dried at 












212°. 


49.8 


50.2 








1 from Box, do 


50 


50 



A cursory inspection of the foregoing Table will evince to the 
reader, how nearly the general composition of sugar and of starch 
agree together; and that the agreement extends even to their 
several varieties. Vinegar, or acetic acid, has not, at present, any 
known representative, among other organic principles ; though it is 
not improbable that several substances exist of conformable propor- 
tions. The composition of vinegar, or acetic acid, is intermediate 
to that of sugar and of Lignin ; while among crystallizable organic 
substances, there is no known compound analogous to Lignin. It 
may, at the same time, be remarked, that both starch and wood can, 



COMPOSITION OF ORGANIZED BODIES- 209 

by different artificial processes, be converted either into sugar or into 
vinegar. We can also convert wood into a sort of starch, as we 
may convert sugar into vinegar; but we are unable to reverse the 
the process, and convert vinegar into sugar, or starch into wood ; 
though these and innumerable changes of a similar kind are easily 
affected by organic agency. 

We proceed now to consider briefly the question we have already 
stated, 

2. How does it happen that substances, so nearly allied in their 
composition, exhibit sensible properties so entirely different? — This 
question, in all its bearings, is probably beyond our powers of inves- 
tigation : at least the extent of the requisite knowledge we have yet 
attained, must be allowed to be exceedingly inadequate. The few 
observations which we have to offer regarding this question may be 
comprised under the two following heads : — The peculiarity of the 
composition of organic substances ; and the nature of the agents by 
which these substances are produced. 

The composition of organized bodies may be viewed as of two 
general kinds, viz. their composition, as depending simply upon dif- 
ferences among the proportions of their essential elements ; and their 
composition as depending upon differences among their incidental 
elements, the proportions of the essential elements being the same.* 
As instances of the first kind of composition, we may mention sugar 
and vinegar. Thus, sugar is composed of 42.85 per cent, of carbon, 
and the rest water ; while the same ingredient, carbon, in the larger 
proportion of 47.05 per cent., with the residue water, constitutes 
vinegar, a powerful acid. Why, with such similarity of composi- 
tion, the sensible properties of these two substances should be so 
unlike, we know not ; any more than we know why oxygen and 
hydrogen, when combined, form water, or than we know any ulti- 
mate chemical fact. However wonderful, therefore, the results of 
these slight differences of composition may, at the first view, appear; 
a little reflection will convince us, that in reality, they are not more 
wonderful than any other chemical phenomenon ; and that they only 
form a particular variety of such phenomena. The same remarks 
are applicable, in part at least, to the striking differences exhibited 
by Sugar and Starch; the essential composition of which two sub- 
stances, as we have before observed, is nearly the same ; but the 
starch contains incidental bodies, from which the sugar is free. On 
the operation of these incidental bodies we shall offer a few conjec- 
tural remarks. 

At the commencement of this chapter, we stated that the inci- 
dental substances existing in organized bodies have hitherto been 

* Of course there is a third, and perhaps the most extensive class of bodies, in 
which both the essential and the incidental elements may be supposed to vary; but 
partly from want of data, and partly to avoid too much complication, we shall not 
enter upon the consideration of this class at present. 

18* 



210 CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION. 

considered as foreign ; but that we could not subscribe to that notion. 
We may now observe, that they seem to us, to contribute chiefly to- 
wards the production of those striking differences, observed among 
bodies having the same essential composition ; and which diversity, 
at first sight, appears so mysterious. How these minute quantities 
operate we do not precisely understand ; but we can imagine them 
to be interposed among the constituent molecules : further, that the 
molecules of these incidental matters are in a state of strong self- 
repulsiop. Such being the case, it is not unreasonable to expect that 
they may have the power of modifying the arrangement of the con- 
stituent molecules ; and thus of altering the sensible properties of the 
substance produced by their combination. 

We have stated our opinion that the molecules of incidental mat- 
ters in organic substances are in a state of self-repulsion. This 
opinion is founded principally, on the equal diffusion of these inci- 
dental molecules throughout the organic substances in which they 
exist ; and on their consequent great distance from each other, which, 
perhaps, can hardly be otherwise explained. If these incidental 
matters were detached, or merely in a state of mixture with the 
constituent elements, as is implied in the notion of their being foreign, 
they would probably retain their self-attractive powers ; and instead 
of being equally diffused among the constituent elements, they would 
be collected together into a mass or crystal ; an arrangement never 
observed. For, though crystallized bodies are found, not unfre- 
quently, within organized substances; yet these bodies are always 
extraneous, and do not form any part of the living structure: of 
which, the molecules under our consideration do actually appear to 
be integrants. In further corroboration of this opinion, may be ad- 
duced the beautiful experiments of Sir John Herschel, who has 
shown, that an enormous power, not less than 50,000 times the power 
of gravity, is instantaneously generated by the simple agency of 
common matters submitted to galvanic influence; as, for example, 
by the agency of mercury alloyed with a millionth part of its weight 
of sodium. These facts, while they place beyond all doubt, the 
efficacy of minute quantities of matter, in producing the most extra- 
ordinary change of the polarities of larger quantities; at the same 
time appear to throw great light on many natural operations. Thus 
the subtle matters of contagion and miasmata ; various medicinal 
substances, whose effects are most astonishing even in the smallest 
doses ; the still more refined and recondite matters of heat and o\ 
light, with many others, all probably act on similar principles. At 
least, the results of the operation of these matters cannot be explain- 
ed by their mere quantity; which in the ordinary chemical accepta- 
tion of the term, is altogether incommensurate w ith the evident and 
striking changes, constantly arising in the processes of nature, from 
such agency. 

The observations that have now been offered, are intended to 



COMPOSITION OF ORGANIZED BODIES. 211 

apply to all those elementary substances, entering into the composi- 
tion of a living organized being. For, no one element, when thus 
assimilated, appears to be in its natural state; or to be capab'e of 
exerting precisely those powers which it is known to exert, when 
acting in virtue of its original inorganic properties. In short, we 
may thus recapitulate what has been said ; besides the essential mo- 
lecules constituting the ground-work of a living organized being, and 
which probably exert on each other, to a certain extent, the ordinary 
chemical influences of matter ; it would seem that there are, at the 
same time, diffused throughout the whole living mass, in exceedingly 
minute proportion, various other matters, the molecules of which 
appear to be in a high state of self-repulsion. By these incidental 
matters, it would further seem, that the ordinary chemical proper- 
ties of the essential elements of the organized living structure are 
variously modified ; in particular, that, the essential elements are 
hindered from assuming a regularly crystallized form. Moreover, 
these incidental matters entering into the composition of a living 
body, apparently furnish to the organic agent new powers utterly 
beyond our comprehension ; which powers the organic agent has 
been endowed with the ability to control, and direct, in any manner 
that, from the exigences of the living organized being, may become 
requisite.* 

The intimate nature of the organic agent or agents, or by what- 
ever other name we may choose to designate the peculiar energies 
which exist in plants and in animals, and by which they are distin- 
guished from inanimate matter, is now, and probably will ever re- 
main, altogether unknown to us. But though we be thus ignorant 
of what these agents are ; we can not only comprehend with tolera- 
ble certainty, what they are not; but we can also in some degree 
ascertain, what they are capable or incapable of effecting. As it is 
of the utmost consequence to obtain just views on these points, we 
shall consider them somewhat in detail. 

When we were treating of inorganic elements and agencies, and 
of the laws which they appear mutually to obey, we found, that 
though their nature be obscure, and the investigation of them very 
difficult; we were nevertheless enabled to adduce some, not alto- 
gether unplausible, conjectures on the modes, in which the elements 
combine, to form regular crystals and the other conditions of inani- 
mate matter. Now with this insight into the nature of inorganic 
operations, and with all the additional knowledge of every kind that 
we can command, let us attentively survey the most simple plant or 
animal ; let us observe the actions, the changes, the modifications of 
form and properties it continually exhibits; and then let us seriously 

• In addition to what is stated in the text, we may remind the reader of what we 
have elsewhere alluded to, viz. : that the organic agents have probably the power, 
within certain limits, of separating 1 the molecules of bodies, considered at present 
as elementary, into more refined forms of matter (submolecules ? ). 



212 CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION. 

ask ourselves, whether every thing that we know will enable us to 
make, even an approach, toward an explanation of what w r e see. It 
is indeed true, that the plant or animal we examine is composed of 
charcoal and water, and of other ingredients with which we are 
equally familiar ; that it is liable to be affected by Heat, Light, Elec- 
tricity, and by other inorganic agents. But it is perfectly ascertain- 
ed that these elements and agents, out of an organized body, and 
left entirely to themselves, never would or could unite, either in virtue 
of their own properties, or from accident, so as to form any plant 
or animal however insignificant. Are we not then compelled to in- 
fer, that within a plant or animal, there exists a principle or agent 
superior to those whose operations we witness in the inorganic 
world; and which agent moreover possesses, under certain restraints, 
the power of controlling and directing the operations of these infe- 
rior agents ? That this is a natural and a just inference, no one who 
calmly views all the circumstances will ever deny ; and if the ex- 
istence of one such agent be admitted, the admission of the existence 
of others can scarcely be withheld ; for the existence of one only, 
is quite inadequate to explain the infinite diversity among plants and 
animals. Thus, in the words of the excellent Paley, " there may be 
many such agents, and many ranks of them :" in other w r ords, there 
may be an ascending gradation of these agents, from that of the 
comparatively simple plant, onward to that of the most complicated 
animal. 

Such being the suggestions concerning organic agency that arise 
from a general survey of organic operations; let us, with reference 
to the further bearing and tendency of these suggestions, inquire a 
little more minutely into the powers and modes of operation of or- 
ganic agents. 

3. Of the modes of Operation of Organic Agents. — In the first 
place, with regard to what cannot be effected by organic agency, 
we may observe, that no organic agent has the power either of 
creating material elements, or of changing one such element into 
another. By element, it may be right to premise, is here meant, a 
principle that is not made up of others ; and which, consequently, 
possesses an absolute and independent existence. Whether one, or 
more, such elements exist, it is not now our object to inquire. The 
astonishing discoveries of modern chemistry have shown, that many 
of those substances, formerly considered as elements, are, in fact, 
compounds; and as the science of chemistry is still progressive, it is 
probable that, with the enlargement of its boundaries, there will be a 
still further diminution of the number of those substances which are. 
as yet, held to be simple. Admitting, however, for the sake of argu- 
ment, that elementary principles do exist, of such immutable cha- 
racter as has been supposed; from the nature of organic beings, at 
leasl of all animals, it is impossible to conceive that they possess the 
power either of creating or of altering these elementary principles. 



COMPOSITION OF ORGANIZED BODIES. 213 

For no organized being has an independent existence, but all ani- 
mals derive their support from previous organization, which might 
be otherwise, did they possess a creating power; nor can they be 
nourished by all substances indiscriminately, as they ought to be r 
were they possessed of a transmuting power. Yet, while it is thus 
denied that organized beings possess the power, either to create or 
to change, in the strict acceptation of these terms ; it has been 
admitted to be exceedingly probable, that the organic agent is, 
within certain limits, qualified to compose and decompose many sub- 
stances which are now viewed as elements ; and that the organic 
agent does thus apparently form and transmute these imagined ele- 
ments. But to enter further, in this place, on the elucidation of these 
obscurities would be foreign to our present purpose. 

The organic agent has not the pow r er of combining elements in 
such a manner, that the properties of the resulting compound shall 
differ from those of a compound, formed from the same elements 
similarly combined by any other agent. The Deity has chosen to 
prescribe limits to his power, and to establish certain laws, to which 
He at all times rigidly adheres ; and, again adopting the language 
of Paley, " when a particular purpose is to be effected, it is not by 
making a new law, nor by the suspension of the old ones, nor by 
making them wind, and bend, and yield to the occasion ; but it is by 
the interposition of an apparatus corresponding with those laws, and 
suited to the exigency which results from them, that the purpose is 
at length attained." In the instance before us, the attainment of the 
particular purpose of organic life is effected, not by any departure 
from the great scheme, but by new and different combinations. To 
suppose, therefore, that the organic agent can, for example, combine 
oxygen and hydrogen, in exactly the same proportion, and in the 
same manner, in which they are combined, when they exist as 
water; and, from these elements so combined, can yet produce 
something different from water, is contrary to all reason, and would 
be, in truth, to accuse the Deity of subverting, and of acting in oppo- 
sition to, his own laws. We have dwelt the more strongly on these 
points, because among physiologists a vague notion seems to have 
prevailed, that organic agents have the power, not only of changing 
the inherent and peculiar properties of bodies; but likewise, of 
causing the results of their combination to be altogether different 
from those that are produced, under exactly similar circumstances, 
by inorganic agency. If however the arguments we have advanced 
be well founded, this notion must be erroneous ; and its erroneous 
character will be rendered still more evident, by the observations, 
we shall, in the second place, offer, regarding the principles on 
which the operations within living organized bodies are really 
conducted. 

The means by which organic agents accomplish the purpose for 
which they are designed, may be naturally divided into two kinds; 



214 CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION. 

those which are dependent on peculiarity of composition and of struc- 
ture; and those by which this peculiarity of composition and of struc- 
ture is produced. 

Inquiry into the first of these means of action has already been in 
great degree anticipated. A brief recital, therefore, is all that is 
here necessary. We have seen that organized substances are com- 
posed of the same elements, which exist abundantly throughout the 
world in the inorganized state ; moreover that these elements are 
subject to all the influences and agencies of inorganic nature. We 
have seen that organic agents are enabled to form certain proximate 
principles, by variously combining their elements ; which proximate 
principles, even when in the condition of crystals, it is not possible 
to imitate artificially. We have, at the same time, seen that these 
proximate principles, though they may have a natural tendency to 
crystallize, are, as they usually exist in living bodies, prevented from 
undergoing that process, by the diffusion of minute quantities of other 
elements throughout their mass ; the molecules of which are in some 
unknown state of activity ; such perhaps as cannot naturally exist 
in the universe, except when conjoined with organization. Finally, 
we have inferred, that the differences and peculiarities, of these 
minute additional matters, are probably adequate for explaining the 
differences and peculiarities, of the sensible and chemical properties 
of the substances that are formed by organization. Having thus 
pointed out the general differences of composition existing among 
organized bodies ; it remains to state, that such differences of com- 
position almost invariably indicate differences of structure. For 
though similarity of composition does not necessarily imply simi- 
larity of structure; yet similarity of structure perhaps, without 
exception, indicates similarity, or, at least, analogy of composition ; 
and, consequently, similarity of action. Thus the woody fibre of 
plants is always formed of the principle termed Lignin, and never 
of resin, or of albumen. The relation of structure to chemical com- 
position is not less striking in the muscular fibres of animals, and 
indeed in all organic compounds of a definite character; the essential 
composition of such substances, though exhibiting endless minor 
diversities, being nevertheless, in all instances, precisely the same. 

The means by which that peculiarity of composition and of struc- 
ture is produced, which is so remarkable in all organic substances, 
like the results themselves, are quite peculiar; and bear little or no 
resemblance to any artificial process of chemistry. For example, 
we have not, in artificial chemistry, any control over individual 
molecules; but are obliged to direct our operations on a mas^, 
formed of a large collection of molecules. The organic agent, on 
the contrary, having an apparatus of extreme minuteness, is enabled 
to operate on each individual molecule separately; and thus, ae- 
cording to the object designed, i<> exclude some molecules, and to 
bring others into contact. In these processes, it may he conceived, 



COMPOSITION OF ORGANIZED BODIES. 215 

that the molecules thus appropriately brought together, and, at the 
same time, guarded from extraneous influence, by the organic 
agent, are in virtue of their own proper affinities, sufficiently dis- 
posed to unite, without requiring that any new properties should be 
communicated to them. Hence the organic agent, in its simplest 
state, may be viewed as a power which so controls certain inorganic 
matters, as to form them into an apparatus, by which it arranges 
and organizes other matters, and thus effects its ulterior purposes. 
Where the operations of this simple organic agent terminate, those 
of another and more effective organic agent may be supposed to 
begin ; which, by carrying the general process of organization a 
step further, adapts the organized material for the operations of a 
third and yet higher agent. Thus, each new agent may be sup- 
posed to possess more or less control over all those below itself, and 
to have the power of appropriating their services ; till at length, at 
the top of the scale, we reach the perfections of organized existence. 
The excellent Paley sanctions this view of organic operations, and 
continues in the following words : " We do not advance this as a 
doctrine either of philosophy or of religion; but we say that the 
subject may safely be represented under this view; because the 
Deity, acting himself by general laws, will have the same conse- 
quences upon our reasoning, as if he had prescribed these laws to 
another." 

This view of the successive creation of organic agents, which 
harmonizes not only with the phenomena of Geology, but with the 
differences which are observable among plants and animals, and 
with the developement of the more perfect species ; is directly opposed 
to the notion of spontaneous developement maintained by some distin- 
guished French philosophers ; as well as to the opinion that life is 
the result of organization. Thus we consider it impossible that by 
any accidental concurrence of circumstances, a dog can, in the 
progress of time, be gradually converted into an ape, or an ape into 
a man ; and moreover, we not only think such an hypothesis directly 
at variance with the whole tenor of the laws of nature, but quite 
absurd. The laws of nature, as we have shown, are in all cases 
most rigidly adhered to by the Deity. These laws, therefore, are 
unalterably stable, within the limits that have been assigned to them. 
Now, from what we know of the laws of nature, or of the properties 
of the elements of matter, or of the agents by which they are moved, 
it is, as we have already stated, impossible to conceive that carbon, 
water, and electricity, of their own accord, and from any inherent 
influence, can so unite as to form the humblest plant or animal; 
much less, so as to secure its perpetual existence by reproduction. 
For similar reasons it is equally impossible to conceive, that there 
can ever be such a spontaneous arrangement or combination of 
inferior organic agents, as to form a superior agent. Whenever, 
therefore, a new and specific agent is required, a new and specific 



216 CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION. 

act of creation must be performed by the Great Architect of the 
universe. Nearly similar remarks apply to the opinion that the 
living principle is the result of organization. The living principle 
is not the result of organization, but the cause of organization. In 
accounting for the phenomena of life, it is absolutely necessary to 
assume the existence of some agency different from, and superior 
to, that which operates among inorganic matters. Now since, as 
we have seen, no inferior agencies can be supposed so to combine 
as to form a superior agency ; does it not accord better with our 
reason, as well as with our experience, to assume at once a new 
creation of the higher principle ? 

The first circumstance that arrests our attention, with reference 
to the preceding remarks, is the wonderful adaptation of the elements 
and the agents of organic nature to each other. For example, had 
not carbon, and azote, and water, been formed with the properties 
which they now possess, organic agents, as we know them, would 
have existed in vain ; and without organic agents, the properties of 
these elements would equally have been useless. And how truly 
wonderful, and utterly beyond our comprehension, are the properties 
and adaptations displayed in the processes of organization ! To 
enable ourselves to form some conception of these processes, by 
bringing to a level with our understanding, those things which they 
accomplish; let us propose to ourselves the question, — What ought 
to be the inherent properties and the constitution of an elementary 
principle, which should not only be capable of being formed into the 
hardest and the softest bodies in nature ; but which should also be 
capable of entering as an essential ingredient into substances so very 
unlike, as sugar, vinegar, wood, oil, albumen, and many others, in 
all their countless forms and varieties? Do we not feel our fancied 
knowledge annihilated by such a question ? Nay what is more, even 
when the question is answered for us ; and when, with the utmost 
care, and to the furthest extent of our ability, we have studied all 
the chemical properties of Carbon — the substance by which the con- 
ditions of the question are fulfilled ; how totally unable are we to ex- 
plain these properties, or even to trace them through their simplest 
modifications? Why, for instance, is the diamond capable of as- 
suming the form of charcoal; or why is charcoal capable of as- 
suming the form of the diamond ? And how are these properties 
modified, and altered, in all the numerous states of combination into 
which we know carbon enters? On what property or quality, not 
possessed by other elements, do all those astonishing capabilities of 
change depend, which are inherent in this element carbon \ And 
why has carbon been chosen for forming organized beings, in pre- 
ference to silex, or iron, or any other element?* To us all these 

•Since there is nothing peculiar in the elements of which organised beings are 
composed, and no reason can be assigned why carbon and other elements have 



COMPOSITION OF ORGANIZED BODIES. 217 

things are absolutely unknown ; but what a conception do they give, 
of that inscrutable agency by which the elements are governed ; of 
the powers of that Almighty Mind who is conversant with them all 
— by whom they were first designed, and by whom they have all 
been created ! How infinitely must His knowledge surpass what- 
ever we can imagine ; how far is His power beyond our utmost 
calculation ! 

On the other hand, if the properties of the elements of matter be 
wonderful, yet more wonderful are those agents within organized 
bodies, by which they are directed. With the intimate nature 
indeed of these agents we have not the remotest acquaintance, nor, 
probably, ever shall have. But, as has been already stated, w r e can 
trace, to a certain extent, the laws of action which these agents 
obey; we observe their unvarying adaptation to the properties of 
carbon, azote, and water, on which they chiefly act ; their power, 
within certain limits, of guiding and controlling inorganic agents ; 
and more than all, that mysterious periodic developement and 
decay, which every organized being undergoes. These facts which 
continually present themselves to our notice, are totally inexplicable 
according to those laws by which inorganic bodies are governed ; 
and are referable only, to an order of laws, which the Great Author 
of Nature has not chosen to reveal. 

Lastly, w 7 e cannot close this chapter, without pointing out to the 
reader a very remarkable contrast, in the two classes of objects 
which have engaged our attention. The number and diversity of 
organic agents appear to be endless ; in the creation, therefore, of 
these agents, the Great Author of Nature has chosen to manifest his 
attribute of infinity. But in the creation of the material elements 
which compose the frame of organized beings, He has adopted a 
plan directly opposite. Instead of different principles; the same 
carbon, the same azote, the same water, enter into every living being, 
from the lowest plant upward to man. Amidst the wonders of 
creation, it is perhaps difficult to say what is most wonderful ; but 
we have often thought, that the Deity has displayed a greater stretch 

been chosen for their formation, we are compelled to ascribe the choice of these 
materials to the will of the Great Creator. But as He never acts without a purpose, 
we cannot doubt that these elements have been selected for some specific design; 
which design has probably been, that the fabric of the beings dwelling on this earth, 
might be adapted to its general position in the Solar system. When we consider 
that the same heat, and the same light diffused by the same central sun ; that the 
whole system obeys the same laws; and that the different planets influence, and are 
influenced by each other ; we are warranted in believing that the planeis are 
essentially composed of the same elementary principles. But admitting that the 
heat and light of the sun are distributed according to the laws which they seem 
universally to obey; the heat in Mercury, close to the sun, and the cold in Saturn 
at the other extreme, must be alike so intense, that organized beings, such as 
inhabit this earth, could not exist for a moment. In the different planets, there- 
fore, may not the living principle be attached to different elements, more or less 
fixed or volatile, as the distance of the planet from the sun may require? 

19 



218 CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION. 

of power, in accommodating to such an extraordinary variety of 
changes, a material so unpromising and so refractory as charcoal, 
and in finally uniting it with the human mind ; than was requisite 
for the creation of the human mind itself. To Him, however, all 
things are alike easy of accomplishment; and He, doubtless, has 
willed these and other proofs of His omnipotence, in order to 
convince us of this truth, — that the Creator of the mind, could 
alone have created the matter with which the mind is associated ! 



CHAPTER II. 

OF THE MODES OF NUTRITION ; COMPREHENDING A SKETCH OF THE ALI- 
MENTARY apparatus; AND OF ALIMENTARY SUBSTANCES IN PLANTS, 
AND IN ANIMALS. 

The subsistence of all organized beings is derived from sources 
external to themselves. Their means of subsistence, however, as 
well as the modes in which the aliments are applied, exhibit an al- 
most endless variety. As might be expected, the widest differences, 
both in the nature of the alimentary substances, and in the manner 
of their introduction, are between .plants and animals. We shall, 
therefore, consider the subject of nutrition under these two heads. 



Section I. 

Of the Modes of the Nutrition of Plants; and of the Nature of those 
Matters by which their Nutrition is effected. 

A minute investigation of the anatomy and the physiology of 
plants would be quite foreign from the object of this treatise. At 
the same time, it is necessary that the reader should have some in- 
sight into these departments of knowledge, in order that he may be 
enabled to understand the collateral researches which it is our duty 
to illustrate. 

" If we reflect upon the phenomena of vegetation," says Professor 
Lindley, " our minds can scarcely fail to be deeply impressed with 
admiration at the perfect simplicity, and, at the same time, faultless 
skill, with which all the machinery is contrived, upon which vegeta- 
ble life depends. A few forms of tissue interwoven horizontally and 
perpendicularly constitute a stem : the developement, by the first 
shoot that the seed produces, of buds which grow upon the same plan 
as the first shoot itself, and a constant succession of the same pheno- 



NUTRITION OF PLANTS. 219 

menon, causes an increase in the length and breadth of the plant ; an 
expansion of the bark into a leaf, within which ramify veins pro- 
ceeding from the seat of nutritive matter in the new shoot, the provi- 
sion of air passages in its substance, and of evaporating pores on its 
surface, enables the crude fluid sent from the roots to be elaborated 
and digested until it becomes the peculiar secretion of the species : 
the contraction of the branch and its leaves forms a flower ; the dis- 
integration of the internal tissue of a petal forms an anther; the fold- 
ing inwards of a leaf is sufficient to constitute a pistillum ; and finally, 
the gorging of the pistillum with fluid which it cannot part with, 
causes the production of & fruit"* 

The " crude fluid sent up from the roots" of plants, or their sap, 
as it is termed, is found to consist of water, mucilage, and sugar, with 
some minute portions of other matters, generally saline. Though, 
under certain circumstances, moisture be absorbed by the leaves of 
all plants, yet there is no doubt that a great part of their nourish- 
ment enters by their roots ; not, however, by the whole root indis- 
criminately: the nourishment of plants is taken up chiefly by the 
minute fibrous parts termed spongioles. Hence, these minute fibrous 
parts are of the utmost importance in the vegetable economy, and 
ought to be carefully preserved, in transplantation, otherwise the plant 
will certainly perish. In some instances, roots appear to be intended 
to act as reservoirs of nourishment for the support of the plants of 
the succeeding year, on their first developement. There are such 
roots in the Orchis and Dahlia tribes, and in others. Of late it seems 
to have been satisfactorily established, that the roots of all plants, be- 
sides imbibing nourishment, perform also an excretory office; and 
that in the soil in which plants grow, there are deposited by the roots, 
certain matters of an excrementitious nature, injurious to the plants 
from which they have been separated ; and which therefore, cannot 
be absorbed again, till they have undergone decomposition. Such 
excreted matters have been adduced as the reason, why a soil be- 
comes so much deteriorated by any one species of plant having long 
grown in it, that it will not support other individuals of the same 
species : whence the necessity of a rotation of crops. 

The principal ingredient in the sap of plants, as already observed, 
is water. The quantity of sap in some plants, is almost incredible ; 
and not less so, is the force with which, on the approach of warm 
weather in our climates, and at the commencement of the rainy sea- 
son within the tropics, that sap is determined upwards. The general 
composition of the sap varies considerably in different parts of the 
same plant. For instance, sap taken from the roots is little more than 
water; while the quantity of saccharine and other matters contained 
in the sap, increases in its progress along the stem to the higher parts 
of the plant. When the sap begins to rise, the leaves at the same time 

* Introduction to Botany, p. 216. 



220 CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION. 

begin to be developed. From the leaves principally the watery por- 
tions of the sap are evaporated ; and the evaporation is copious and 
unceasing. The more solid matters thus remain dissolved in a less 
proportion of water ; and after undergoing further changes, as is 
supposed, in the leaves chiefly, these matters are returned, along with 
the remaining water, to be deposited in other parts of the plant, for 
its future uses. It seems now to be generally admitted, that one part 
of the food of plants is the matter extracted from the soil ; and that 
this matter is taken up with the watery portion of the sap above-men- 
tioned. It seems also to be admitted, that carbonic acid gas is in 
some way indispensable to vegetation ; " for it has been ascertained, 
that feed plants as you will, they will neither grow nor live, whether 
you offer them oxygen, hydrogen, azote, or any other gaseous or 
fluid principle, unless carbonic acid is present." Like the other nutri- 
tious matters, this carbonic acid is partly taken up by the roots ; but 
under certain circumstances, it is also separated from the air, and 
absorbed by the leaves. The circumstances under which this ab- 
sorption, or rather decomposition, of carbonic acid, by the leaves 
takes place, are most curious and important. They are understood 
to be as follows : 

During the day, and particularly during sunshine, the leaves of 
plants have the power of abstracting the carbonic acid from the at- 
mosphere. The carbon of the acid, and perhaps also a little of its 
oxygen combine with the plant ; while the greater part of the oxy- 
gen remains, and is diffused through the atmosphere in a gaseous 
state. During the night, on the contrary, or in the shade, plants, in 
general, convert a portion of the oxygen of the atmosphere into car- 
bonic acid ; but the quantity thus converted, is less than that separated 
from the carbonic acid which they decompose, under the influence of 
the solar light. At the same time with this formation of carbonic 
acid by plants during the night, they are said also to absorb from 
the atmosphere a certain portion of oxygen ; to replace that which 
had been given off, during exposure to sunshine, on the preceding 
day. Plants absorb carbon as long as they are exposed to the light ; 
during the season, therefore, when the day is long and the night is 
short, plants give off much less carbon than they absorb. This ex- 
cess of the absorption of carbon, is probably one reason why in the 
Polar latitudes, the progress of vegetation is so rapid. By a beautiful 
provision of nature, in the course of the short summer of a few weeks. 
but of unvarying light, plants, in these latitudes, go through all the 
changes which in hotter climates require many months. 

These phenomena of gaseous absorption and secretion in the leaves 
of plants, seem to be produced by a portion of the leaf peculiarly 
organized, and situated immediately under its external covering or 
epidermis. Professor Burnet has lately explained these phenomena, 
by referring them to the respiration and digestion o\ plants. The 
process of respiration in plants, is supposed to be continual} ami to 



ORGANS OF DIGESTION IN ANIMALS. 221 

be accompanied, as in animals, by the formation and emission of car- 
bonic acid gas. While digestion, which consists in the decomposi- 
tion of carbonic acid gas, takes place only during the exposure of 
plants to the influence of the light — the carbon of the carbonic acid 
being separated from the oxygen, and absorbed. Hence a plant ex- 
posed to sunshine purifies the air, by digesting the carbonic acid, 
the carbon of which it appropriates ; while it sets the oxygen free. 
In the dark, on the contrary, digestion ceases, but respiration con- 
tinues ; and carbonic acid gas is thus accumulated in the surround- 
ing atmosphere. 

With respect to the " peculiar principles of plants," these are as 
numerous as the individual plants themselves; so that to attempt any 
detailed account of them here, would be quite impracticable. Gene- 
rally speaking, the peculiar principles found in plants may be divided 
into three great classes : — those vegetable principles in which hydro- 
gen and oxygen are combined in the proportions that form water ; 
as in the division of saccharine bodies, described in a former chap- 
ter : — those principles in which hydrogen, or rather carbon and hy- 
drogen, predominate ; which generally have more or less of an oily 
character; — and those principles in which oxygen predominates; 
which have usually an acid character. Besides these three great 
classes of vegetable principles, there are some that contain azote, 
and perhaps other elements ; many of which principles also exhibit 
weak alkaline powers : such are the peculiar principles of Opium and 
other Narcotics ; also of Cinchona ; and a variety of others, chiefly 
employed as medicinal agents. 



Section II. 

Of the modes of Nutrition in Animals ; and of the Alimentary Sub- 
stances by ivhich they are nourished. 

To beings, like animals, endowed with locomotive powers, the ab- 
sorption of their nourishment from without, would have been ex- 
ceedingly inconvenient. Animals have, therefore, been furnished 
with an additional receptacle and apparatus subservient to nutrition, 
into which, as inclination or circumstances may prompt them, their 
food is conveyed at intervals ; and from which, after having under- 
gone certain changes, the food is absorbed and distributed over 
their system, as the exigences of that system may require. Hence 
the distinction between plants and animals; — plants absorb their 
nourishment by external, animals by internal, roots or spongioles. 
We need scarcely remark, that the stomach and alimentary canal, 
with their appendages, are the internal apparatus to which we allude ; 
and that this internal apparatus constitutes a marked difference be- 
tween plants and animals. 

19* 



222 CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION. 

1. Of the Organs of Digestion in Animals. — Among the different 
tribes of animals, there is an almost endless diversity in the forma- 
tion of the alimentary organs ; and as these organs vary, not only in 
their own formation, but also with respect to the auxiliary appa- 
ratus, and appendages of every kind, connected with them; any 
detailed account of the alimentary system would at present be quite 
uncalled for. In general, the alimentary canal of the higher classes 
of animals, consists of a tube of greater or less elongation; ex- 
panded in some parts of its length ; terminated at one extremity by 
a mouth, into w r hich the food is received ; and at the other, by a 
provision for the removal of excrementitious matters. In some of 
the less perfect animals, the alimentary canal has only one aper- 
ture ; in these animals, of course, instead of a canal, there is a kind 
of sac. In a very few other animals, the alimentary cavity has nu- 
merous apertures. In all instances, however, and whatever may 
be the nature of the alimentary matters, these matters, after having 
been retained for some time in the organs appropriated to nutrition, 
are reduced, more or less, to a fluid state — are digested, in the 
common sense of the term, and are converted into what is denomi- 
nated chyme. The more nutritious parts of the fluid chyme, or the 
chyle as they are termed, are then absorbed, and distributed through 
the system for the reparation of the animal ; while the insoluble and 
other matters, are separated as excrementitious. 

We have already alluded to the endless diversity observable in 
the form and arrangements of the alimentary canal in the different 
kinds of animals. A few of the most remarkable of these diversi- 
ties among the more perfect animals will be noticed, in the outline 
we are now to give of the alimentary canal as existing in the hu- 
man body. 

Of the Mouth and its Appendages. — " In no apparatus put toge- 
ther by art," says Paley, " do I know such multifarious uses so aptly 
contrived as in the natural organization of the human mouth." " In 
this small cavity we have teeth of different shape, — first for cutting, 
secondly for grinding; muscles most artificially disposed for carry- 
ing on the compound motion of the lower jaw, half lateral and half 
vertical, by which the mill is worked ; fountains of saliva springing 
up in different parts of the cavity for the moistening of the food. 
while the mastication is going on ; glands to feed the fountains : a 
muscular construction of a very peculiar kind in the back part o\ 
the cavity, for the guiding of the prepared aliment into its passage 
towards the stomach, and in many cases for carrying it along that 
passage." " In the mean time, and within the same cavity, is going 
on another business altogether different from what is here described 
— that of respiration and of speech. In addition, therefore, to all 
thai has been mentioned, we have a passage opened from this cavity 
to the lungs, for the admission of air, exclusively of every other 
substance; we have muscles, some in the larynx, and without mini- 



ORGANS OF DIGESTION IN ANIMALS. 223 

ber in the tongue, for the purpose of modulating that air in its pas- 
sage, with a variety, a compass, and a precision of which no other 
musical instrument is capable. And lastly, we have a specific con- 
trivance for dividing the pneumatic part from the mechanical, and 
for preventing one set of actions interfering with the other." " The 
mouth, with all these intentions to serve, is a single cavity ; is one 
machine, with its parts neither crowded nor confined, and each un- 
embarrassed by the rest."* Such is Paley's graphic description of 
the human mouth and its appendages : we have quoted it at length, 
that it may serve as a text for illustration. 

Man has been observed to differ more from other animals in the 
form of his lower jaw, than in the form of any other bone of his 
body. This difference consists chiefly in the prominence of the 
chin ; that peculiar characteristic of the human countenance, which 
distinguishes more or less every race of mankind, and is found in 
no other animal whatever. There is likewise a striking difference, 
among the various tribes of animals, in the mode of articulation of 
the lower jaw ; which in all cases is singularly adapted to the na- 
ture of the food of the animal. Thus, in the carnivorous tribes, the 
articulation is so arranged that the jaw can move only up and 
down ; and is almost entirely incapable of that lateral movement, 
which is essential to genuine mastication. Hence such animals cut 
and tear their food, and swallow it in large pieces. But those ani- 
mals that live on vegetables, in addition to the vertical motion of their 
lower jaw, have the power of moving it backwards and forwards, 
or to either side, so as to produce a grinding effect, admirably fitted 
for triturating the vegetable matters on which they subsist. 

The teeth next claim our attention, as being not less suited to the 
habits of the animal, than in the form of the jaw in which they are 
set. Teeth are divided by naturalists into three orders: — The 
Incisores, or cutting teeth, placed in the front part of the mouth ; the 
Cuspidati, canine, or corner teeth, usually placed near the angles of 
the jaw ; the Molares, grinding, or lateral teeth, which always oc- 
cupy the sides and back part of the jaw. In man, and in those 
animals which most nearly resemble him in their structure, teeth 
exist of all the above varieties of form. But many species want 
one or other of these varieties ; while the teeth they possess, are of 
a form and size very unlike the same teeth in man. Thus, in ani- 
mals which live chiefly on the harder vegetable substances, and 
which, from their peculiar mode of feeding, have been termed 
gnawing animals, the incisor teeth are the most remarkably de- 
veloped ; as these teeth are the best adapted, and indeed are the 
most necessary, to their habits. In carnivorous animals, on 
the other hand, the canine teeth are of chief importance; as ena- 
bling these animals to seize and hold their prey; in such ani- 
mals, accordingly, the canine teeth are the most perfectly formed. 

* Natural Theology, chap. ix. 



224 CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION". 

Lastly, in the animals that feed on grass, and other herbaceous 
substances, and whose aliments require long and complete mas- 
tication, the Molares, or grinding teeth, attain the greatest enlarge- 
ment ; and in many of these animals the incisor and the canine 
teeth are entirely wanting. Besides the adaptation of the form, the 
enamel or harder cutting portion of the teeth, is distributed over 
and throughout their texture, according to their intended uses, in a 
manner that is truly extraordinary. The description however of 
the arrangement of the enamel, as well indeed as a minute account 
of the teeth themselves, belong to the physiologist, on whose pro- 
vince we shall not further intrude. But it is imposible to take even 
the most superficial view of the teeth of animals, without being 
struck with the admirable design and fitness they display, throughout 
their whole fabrication. 

The next auxiliary appendages of the mouth are the glands that 
secrete the saliva ; in which we observe the same beautiful arrange- 
ment as in the form and structure of the teeth. In man, though the 
apparatus for the secretion of the saliva, is by no means of large 
size, yet the quantity of fluid which the salivary glands are capable 
of secreting, and do secrete during mastication, is very considera- 
ble ; often amounting, it is said, to half a pint or more. This fluid in 
its perfectly healthy state, is neither acid nor alkaline, or alkaline only 
in a slight degree ; but occasionally it assumes an acid character. 
Besides the great utility of the saliva in moistening the food, we can- 
not doubt that it assists, and is even necessary to the full completion 
of the succeeding digestive process. By a beautiful arrangement, 
those animals that do not masticate their food, as the carnivorous 
tribes, have very small salivary glands; w r hile in animals whose 
food requires long mastication, as in ruminating animals — the cow 
and the sheep, for example, the salivary glands are very large. 

The passage by which the masticated food is conveyed from the 
mouth to the stomach is termed the (Esophagus. Like the whole 
frame, the oesophagus is admirably adapted for its office ; and in 
different animals, varies in size and structure, according to their 
habits. These differences, however, scarcely concern us at present, 
and we pass on to that important organ — the Stomach. 

The human stomach is a membranous bag, of a shape rather 
difficult to be described, so as to convey a clear notion of it to the 
reader. If we imagine two cones united at their bases, and the 
figure thus produced to be bent into a semicircular form, some idea 
may be obtained of the outline of the stomach in the human species. 
In respect to its size, the human stomach varies; but in the adult, its 
capacity is usually such as to contain about two or three pints. 
The stomach is situated immediately under the diaphragm; but the 
precise place of the organ differs somewhat with its state of reple- 
tion. The general position of the stomach is transverse, or hori- 
zontal, supposing the botly to be upright; the left orifice, or ccirtha. 



ORGANS OF DIGESTION IN ANIMALS. 225 

which communicates with the oesophagus, being somewhat higher 
than the right orifice, the pylorus, through which the food is trans- 
mitted to the further portion of the alimentary canal. The upper 
space between the two orifices is usually termed the small curva- 
ture; the lower space, the great curvature, of the stomach. Nume- 
rous glands occupy the internal surface of the stomach, particularly 
near its pyloric orifice. By these glands a fluid is secreted of the 
highest importance in the digestive functions, on the nature of which 
we shall enlarge hereafter. 

Such is the stomach of man; but the form and the magnitude of 
this organ vary almost infinitely in different animals, according to 
the nature of their food, and other circumstances. We can, at 
present, notice only two or three of the most remarkable diversities. 
In most carnivorous animals, the stomach bears a resemblance to 
that of man. There is also a resemblance, at least externally, in 
certain herbivorous animals ; as in the horse, the rabbit, and others. 
The internal arrangements, however, are different; thus, in the 
animals above mentioned, the left or cardiac half of the stomach is 
lined with cuticle ; while the other half, towards the pylorus, has 
the usual villous and secreting surface. Hence, these two portions 
of the stomach perform very different offices, and generally contain 
food in very different states of reduction. The most complicated 
and artificial arrangement, however, both with respect to the struc- 
ture of the parts, and the lining membranes, is found in the well- 
known four stomachs of the animals that ruminate and have divided 
hoofs ; as the cow and the sheep. We shall endeavour to give a 
general description of these four stomachs. The first stomach is 
denominated the Paunch, and in the adult animal is by far the 
largest. The second stomach follows, and may be regarded as a 
globular appendage to the paunch ; from which it is distinguished, 
principally, by the regular and beautiful distribution of its internal 
membrane into polygonal cells. The third stomach is the smallest 
of the four, and is the most remarkable in its structure: its capacity 
is much diminished by numerous and broad duplicatures of its in- 
ternal membrane, which are placed lengthwise, and vary in breadth 
in a regular order. The fourth stomach is next in size to the 
paunch, and is lined with a villous membrane approaching to that of 
the human stomach, which this fourth stomach may be supposed to 
represent ; the three preceding stomachs having been evidently in- 
tended to prepare the refractory food of the animal for the true di- 
gestive process, w T hich it undergoes in this last stomach. Every 
one is acquainted with the fact that animals furnished with the gas- 
tric arrangements above described, ruminate ; that is to say, have 
the faculty of masticating a second time, and at their leisure, that 
food which had been hastily swallowed, and deposited in their first 
stomach. The contrivance by which rumination is effected is very 
beautiful ; and is connected w 7 ith the peculiar arrangement already 



226 CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION. 

mentioned of the four stomachs, with respect to the oesophagus : 
but, as it would not be easy in a few words, to give more than a 
general outline ; we must refer the reader to anatomical works, for 
a more particular description of the stomachs of ruminating ani- 
mals. The only other modification of the stomach which we shall 
notice, is that which exists in some birds ; as for example, in the 
common fowl. The common domestic fowl, as well as many simi- 
lar birds, has a sort of preliminary stomach, termed the crop, formed 
by an expansion of the oesophagus. In the crop, the hard seeds, and 
other compact substances which birds devour, are macerated and 
softened, and perhaps undergo further changes, before they enter 
the proper stomach, to be next considered. The proper stomach, or 
gizzard, of birds, is a hollow muscle of great strength, lined with a 
firm and thick epidermis, disposed in rugse, and admirably adapted 
for triturating the hard matters that constitute their food. The small 
stones which these birds constantly swallow seem also to promote 
this trituration. 

We have given the above short sketch of the structure of the 
stomachs of animals, not only that we might impart to the general 
reader a faint conception of the extraordinary design manifested in 
that structure ; but to enable us to show the object of diversity of 
structure, when we come to speak of the function of digestion a 
little more in detail. 

After the stomach we proceed to the consideration of the Intesti- 
nal Canal In man, and in the more perfect animals, this canal as- 
sumes two well marked forms, usually termed, from their relative 
size, the small and the large intestines. In most animals resembling 
man, the small intestines are the longest, and their internal surface 
is villous. The coats of the large intestines are thicker, and the 
membrane with which they are lined is very rarely villous. The 
first portion of the small intestines, from its supposed length termed 
the duodenum, or twelve-inch intestine, begins from the pyloric ori- 
fice of the stomach ; and, in many animals, has a course not easy to 
be described, so as to be intelligible to the general reader. The 
duodenum terminates in the second portion of the small intestines, 
called the jejunum, from its being usually empty. The duodenum 
differs from the stomach and other parts of the canal, in being se- 
cured in its position by various attachments; while the stomach and 
other parts of the canal, are comparatively loose and floating. This 
fixedness appears to serve many wise purposes, on which we cannot 
dwell here; but one purpose probably is. to ensure the easy and re- 
gular passage of the bile and the pancreatic iluids into this pari <>t 
the canal. As the organs producing these important fluids are fixed, 
the conducting tubes necessarily require also to he connected with a 
fixed organ; otherwise the passage of the iluids from the secreting 
organs to the intestine, would be constantly liable to interruption. 
The duodenum is very highly organized, and its functions arc pro- 



ORGANS OF DIGESTION IN ANIMALS. 227 

bably not less important than even those of the stomach. The re- 
mainder of the small intestines is divided into the jejunum already 
mentioned, and the ilium; but the precise place where one ends, and 
the other begins, is scarcely definable ; nor are the differences of 
structure between the two so obvious, as to require to be noticed in 
this place. 

The large intestines exceed the small intestines in diameter, but 
are considerably shorter : their form and structure are also different. 
The first division of this portion of the alimentary canal is termed 
the cascum ; and, in a man at least, may be considered as little more 
than the head or commencement of the next division of the large 
intestines, termed the colon. The colon is of much greater diameter 
than any other part of the intestinal canal, and constitutes almost 
the entire length of the large intestines. The colon begins low down 
on the right side of the abdomen, then ascending to the level of the 
stomach, passes across to the left side, immediately below that or- 
gan. On the left side, the colon descends again, and at the same 
time forms what is called the sigmoid flexure. The colon and the 
alimentary canal at length terminate in what is named the rectum. 
The texture of the colon is much thicker than that of any other por- 
tion of the canal. Its organization also is peculiar ; and, like the 
whole arrangement, wonderfully adapted for the purposes which this 
portion of the canal is supposed to serve in the animal economy. 

Such is the short account of the alimentary canal in man. We 
shall now state some of the more remarkable diversities that are 
observed in the lower animals. 

One of the most striking circumstances relative to the alimentary 
canal in animals, is its various lengths in the different classes. In 
man, and other omnivorous animals, the proportion is intermediate 
between that of carnivorous animals on the one hand, and herbivo- 
rous animals on the other. In man, the whole length of the canal 
is about six or seven times that of the body ; while in carnivorous 
animals it is only from about three to five times that length ; and in 
graminivorous animals, as in the sheep, the length of the canal is 
twenty-seven times that of the body. In other herbivorous animals, 
the length of the canal varies from twelve to sixteen times that of 
the body. In most birds the alimentary canal is much shorter than 
in quadrupeds ; the length in general, being between twice and five 
times that of their bodies: while in many reptiles and fish, the length 
of the canal scarcely exceeds that of the body : in some fish it is 
even less ; as for example, in the shark. There are animals that 
feed on vegetables, the length of whose alimentary canal is not so 
groat, as in the instance above stated ; the deficiency in length be- 
ing apparently made up in breadth. Thus, in the horse, the stomach 
is simple, and not much developed, when compared with the size of 
the animal ; nor are the intestines very remarkable for their length ; 
but the ccecum and the large intestines are enormously expanded in 



228 CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION. 

diameter. The coecum of the horse seems to perform many of the 
offices of a second stomach, and is of fully equal capacity. There 
are in animals, many other beautiful arrangements of the digestive 
organs, which we shall pass without further notice ; as our desire is 
to inform the reader of the general connexion and adaptation, which 
exists between the structure of animals, and the food on which they 
live. It remains to conclude this outline of the digestive organs, 
with a few remarks on those almost invariable accompaniments of 
the alimentary canal, — the liver, the pancreas, and the spleen. 

The liver is the largest glandular apparatus in the body, and one 
of its important offices is to secrete the Bile ; which secretion, as 
before observed, enters the intestines, near the commencement of the 
duodenum. The general situation of the human liver, is in the up- 
per part of the abdomen, under the ribs on the right side ; from 
whence it extends more or less to the region of the stomach, and in 
some instances, even to the left side. The appearance and form of 
the liver, are too well known to require description here ; while to 
those who are unacquainted with these particulars, they cannot be 
adequately made known by words. In man, and the greater num- 
ber of animals, the bile is collected in a small bag, termed from its 
office, the gall-bladder. The animals wanting a gall-bladder are 
chiefly vegetable feeders ; as the horse and the goat among quadru- 
peds, the pigeon and the parrot among birds. .On the contrary, most 
amphibia have a gall-bladder ; but it exists in few animals lower in 
the zoological scale. The liver assumes a variety of forms in dif- 
ferent animals. In many, and particularly in carnivorous, animals, 
the liver is more divided than in man : while in ruminating animals, 
also in the horse, the hog, and others, its divisions are not more nu- 
merous than in man. The liver of birds consists of two lobes of 
equal size. 

The pancreas, or sweetbread, is a large gland, which, in the human 
body, lies across the upper and back part of the abdomen, behind 
the stomach; and between the liver and the spleen. The pancreas 
is composed of numerous small glands, whose ducts unite and form 
the pancreatic duct. In man the pancreatic duct joins the gall duct, 
at its entrance into the duodenum, and thus the peculiar secretion of 
the pancreas is poured into that intestine, commingled with the bile. 
In animals the pancreas, like the liver, is much varied in its form : 
and its duct, instead of entering with the biliary duct, often joins the 
intestinal canal separately; as in the hare and others. In fishes the 
pancreas is wanting; but what are termed the corcal appendages, 
are supposed to have a similar office. The nature of the pancreatic 
fluid will be considered presently. 

The spleen in man is situated in the upper and left side of the ab- 
domen. Its shape is oblong, and its colour a deep mulberry; more 
nearly resembling that of the liver than of any other organ. The 
spleen lias no excretory duet, and its use Is very little understood. 



ORGANS OF DIGESTION IN ANIMALS. 229 

Among the less perfect animals, the spleen is much smaller than in 
those whose structure resembles that of man : and where there is 
more than one stomach, the spleen is always attached to the first. 
The situation also of the spleen varies in the less perfect animals ; 
thus in the frog, it is fixed in the mesentery. 

We proceed to notice, very briefly, the peculiar circulation of the 
blood in the abdominal viscera; together with the character and 
agency of that portion of the nervous system, which is connected 
with the digestive and assimilating functions of animals. 

In the general circulation of the blood through an animal body ; 
a large tube or artery, communicating with the heart, is gradually 
subdivided as it is prolonged from that organ, till its subdivisions 
finally become imperceptible. While in this state of minute subdi- 
vision, the arteries assume the character of veins. The change the 
veins undergo in their progress, is the reverse of that of the arteries. 
They unite gradually, and, at length, form one or two principal 
tubes, which proceed to the side of the heart opposite to that from 
which the artery originated. Such is the circulation of the blood 
through the body generally; the circulation through the lungs is 
merely a repetition of the same arrangement. Throughout the body, 
therefore, the general motion of the blood in arteries is from greater 
to smaller tubes ; while in the veins it is from smaller to greater 
tubes. By a beautiful provision, the veins are also furnished with 
valves, which most effectually prevent the regurgitation of the blood: 
without such valves, the blood could scarcely flow in a regular 
stream. We have introduced these remarks, with the view of sta- 
ting, that the circulation of the blood through the organs of digestion, 
presents a remarkable exception to the general circulation of the 
body. The venous blood, from these organs, undergoes a prelimi- 
nary arterializing process in the liver, before it is remingled with the 
venous blood from the rest of the body. That is to say, the veins 
from the organs of digestion, unite into one large vessel termed the 
vena portce; which, entering the liver, is there again subdivided, in 
the same manner as an artery. These ultimate subdivisions of the 
vena portce, together with the similar subdivisions of the proper ar- 
tery of the liver, coalesce ; and from the blood thus mixed the bile 
is separated. The coalesced blood-vessels assuming the character 
of veins, then gradually unite, and at length form two or three large 
tubes, which empty themselves into the general veins going to the 
heart ; while the hepatic ducts, uniting in like manner, convey the 
bile to the gall-bladder. Such are the principal facts connected 
with the circulation of the blood in the abdominal viscera, and with 
the secretion of the bile. We shall soon have occasion to bring 
them to the recollection of the reader. 

When speaking of organic agents, we noticed the probability of 
the opinion, that in living beings, there exists a series of agencies 
gradually raised one above another ; each agency having more or 

20 



230 CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION. 

less control over all those below it. Now, in the digestive and 
assimilating functions, we appear to have, as we might expect, the 
lowest of these agencies. The agencies operating in digestion, and 
in the first stages of assimilation are, in man, perhaps the same that 
exist in all organized beings, vegetable as well as animal ; and are 
only a few degrees, as it were, above the agencies of mere inor- 
ganic matter. This resemblance is inferred from the phenomena of 
assimilation; not less than from the peculiar character of the nerves, 
distributed over the digestive organs ; the effects of which nerves, 
as we shall presently endeavour to show, approach more nearly to 
those of common chemical agents, than to the effects of any agent 
belonging to the animal economy. These nerves compose [what, 
from their peculiar structure, are termed the ganglionic nerves. In 
animals of the very lowest kind, the ganglionic nerves alone appear 
to exist; and though in the more perfect animals, these nerves are 
connected with others of a higher character, they always form, by 
themselves, a peculiar system ; the functions of which seem to be 
of the subordinate character above noticed. 

2. Of Alimentary Substances. — It may be considered as a general 
rule, that organized beings adopt, as aliments, substances lower 
than themselves in the scale of organization; or which, if not 
originally lower, in some measure become so, by certain spontane- 
ous changes they undergo. There are, of course, innumerable ex- 
ceptions to this rule ; but viewing the whole of animated beings, it 
seems to be a law of nature. Thus plants, and perhaps the very 
lowest kinds of animals, have the power of assimilating carbonic 
acid gas : the powers of assimilation of plants, and of such animals, 
may also extend to other inorganic compounds of carbon — indeed 
they seem to derive their chief nourishment from matters of that 
nature. Higher in the zoological scale, we find that animals almost 
invariably prey on those that are inferior to themselves, either in 
magnitude, in organization, or in intelligence ; till we arrive at man 
himself. He, as his necessities, or as his fancies may dictate, 
appropriates every nourishing substance, even carbonic acid gas ; 
which his stomach, perhaps in common with that of all animals, 
seems to have the power of assimilating. Of course a lion, or even 
a crab, can feed on the body of a man, as well as on that of an ox 
or of an insect. But no one we presume, will assert, that man is 
the natural prey or food of these animals ; and that alone is the de- 
gree of immunity, for which we here contend : for in all the opera- 
tions of nature, we must try to discover and bear in mind, not the 
exception, but the rule; otherwise we shall be constantly liable to 
error. 

By this beautiful arrangement in the mode of their nutrition, the 
more perfect animals are exonerated from the toil of the initial as- 
similation of the materials composing their frame; as in their \\kh\, 
the elements are already in the order which is adapted for their pur- 



FOOD OF ANIMALS. 231 

pose. Hence the assimilating organs do not require that complica- 
tion, which they otherwise would have needed ; and much elaborate 
organization is saved. Striking illustrations of this abridgment of 
organization, are afforded by the differences before mentioned, 
between the assimilating apparatus of carnivorous and of grami- 
nivorous animals. According to the scale which this difference 
exhibits, we can form some conception of the complication that 
would be requisite, if such an animal as man were, like a plant, 
destined to feed on carbonic acid gas; or carburetted hydrogen; 
or any other simple compound of carbon. 

Another great purpose is affected by this arrangement, without 
which, organization, at least, as at present constituted, could hardly 
exist. If organized beings did not prey on each other, their remains 
would, in time, accumulate in such quantity, as to be nearly incom- 
patible with life ; certainly with animal life in its most perfect condi- 
tion, as it is at present known to us. But by the arrangement that 
animals are food to each other, not only is an opportunity afforded, 
for the existence of a greater number of animals, and of a greater 
variety among them; but the obtrusion of the bodies of animals, 
in whom life has become extinct, is entirely prevented : nor, is the 
removal of the dead animal matter the only good accomplished, but 
many other important results are obtained. To enter upon the 
consideration of these, would be foreign to our present object: 
there is, however, one consequence of this system of universal 
voracity, which more immediately concerns us, since it is of a 
nature so comprehensive, as to suggest a natural classification of 
alimentary substances; we allude to the similarity of composition 
among the staminal principles which constitute the fabric of orga- 
nized beings. 

In our introductory remarks on the chemistry of organization, we 
showed that organized matters, however apparently dissimilar, yet, 
chemically speaking, are often nearly related. Of this relation we 
gave as an example, the composition of the extensive class of sub- 
stances, denominated the saccharine group ; all of which, notwith- 
standing the endless diversity of their appearance, we showed to be 
essentially alike in their composition, and to consist of carbon asso 
ciated with water. Saccharine substances are chiefly found in the 
vegetable kingdom, of which they form the characteristic staminal 
principle. 

Another well known class of bodies, existing both in vegetables 
and in animals, are those whose character is oily. Oleaginous bodies 
occur in an infinite variety of forms, some being solid, others fluid ; 
yet, in every instance, their peculiar properties are so strongly mark- 
ed, that we seldom hesitate about their nature. In this distinctness 
of outward appearance, oily bodies are strongly contrasted with the 
saccharine group before mentioned ; many of which have few ap- 
parent and sensible properties in common. The composition of all 



232 CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION. 

bodies of this oleaginous group, which we have hitherto had an op- 
portunity of examining in a satisfactory manner, we have found to 
be essentially the same : they are either composed of olefiant gas 
and water, or have a reference to that composition. Such is also 
the composition of the well known proximate principle termed spirit 
of wine, or alcohol ; into which, most substances belonging to the 
saccharine group, under favourable circumstances, are readily con- 
vertible by the process termed fermentation. 

When almost any part of an animal body, (with the exception 
perhaps of those matters of a purely oleaginous character) is boiled 
in water, it is separated into two portions, — one soluble in water, 
and forming with the water a tremulous jelly, or gelatine — the other 
remaining insoluble, indeed becoming harder, the longer it is boiled ; 
and which, from the identity of its properties to those of the white 
of an egg, is denominated albumen. These animal principles exist 
in very different proportions in the different textures ; some of these 
textures, as the skin, being convertible almost entirely into gelatine ; 
while others yield comparatively little gelatine, and consist principally 
of albumen. In no animal compound does gelatine exist as a fluid ; 
hence, it has been supposed to be produced by boiling ; but the sup- 
position does not appear to be well founded. One of the most re- 
markable properties of gelatine, is, its ready convertibility into a 
sort of sugar, by a process similar to that by which starch may be 
so converted. Gelatine may be considered as the least perfect kind 
of albuminous matter existing in animal bodies ; intermediate, as it 
were, between the saccharine principle of plants, and thoroughly 
developed albumen : indeed, gelatine in animals, may be said to be 
the counter-part of the saccharine principle in vegetables. Albumen 
exists in the fluid state as a component of the blood : small quantities 
of fluid albumen are also contained in certain animal secretions : 
but there is much more of the principle in a solid state ; forming 
what is termed coagulated albumen. The blood likewise contains 
Fibrin, another modification of the albuminous principle, in a fluid, 
or at least in a suspended state : though the most frequent condition 
of Fibrin, is that of a tough fibrous mass, in which condition, toge- 
ther with albumen, it forms the basis of the muscular or fleshy parts 
of animals. The curd of milk is also a modification of the albumi- 
nous principle. Another modification of the same principle is the 
substance called gluten; this substance though most abundant in 
vegetables, so far resembles the fleshy parts of animals, as to be, in 
like manner, capable of separation into two portions, analogous to 
gelatine and albumen. Neither of these modifications of albumen 
exhibits the quality possessed by gelatine, of being artificially con- 
vertible into saccharine matter; at least by any known process; but 
all of them, including gelatine, differ from the oleaginous ami the 
saccharine principlos, in this respect ; that they contain a fourth ele- 



FOOD OF ANIMALS. 233 

mentary principle, namely, azote. The exact composition of the 
albuminous group cannot at present be stated. 

Such are the three great staminal principles from which all or- 
ganized bodies are essentially constituted. Of these staminal prin- 
ciples it has already been remarked, that, without changing their 
essential composition, they are capable of assuming an infinite variety 
of modified forms ; many of which are so peculiar, that it is very 
difficult to recognise their identity, from their sensible properties. 
Moreover, these staminal principles, in their forms, are capable of 
readily passing into one another, and of combining with each other ; 
at least the organic agents, as we shall see hereafter, have the power 
of effecting these changes. Further, these staminal principles are 
all susceptible of transmutation into new principles, according to 
certain laws : thus the saccharine principle is readily convertible in- 
to the acid, termed oxalic ; or, under other circumstances, into the 
modification of the oleaginous principle, alcohol. Though an end- 
less variety, however, of these modifications of the staminal princi- 
ples exist in different organized beings, accompanied by numerous 
foreign bodies, the proportion they bear to the staminal principles is 
very limited ; and they are either confined to glandular secretions, 
or are excrementitious, or extravascular : that is to say, these modi- 
fications and combinations form no part of the living animal, though 
they are attached to it ; as in the case of the various products of 
secretion, the shells of the molluscous tribes, and many others. 

The consequence then, to which we before alluded is; that as all 
the more perfect organized beings feed on other organized beings, 
their food must necessarily consist of one or more of the above three 
staminal principles. Hence, it not only follows, as before observed, 
that in the more perfect animals, all the antecedent labour of prepar- 
ing these compounds de novo, is avoided ; but that a diet to be com- 
plete, must contain more or less of all the three staminal principles. 
Such, at least, must be the diet of the higher classes of animals, and 
especially of man. It cannot indeed be doubted, that many animals 
have the power of forming a chyle, and if expressly organized for 
the purpose, may even live for a while on one of these classes of 
aliments ; but that they can be so nourished for an unlimited time, 
is exceedingly improbable. Nay, if we judge from what is known 
from universal observation, as well as from experiments which have 
been actually made by physiologists regarding food, we are led to 
the directly opposite conclusion ; namely, that the more perfect ani- 
mals could not so exist ; but that a mixture, of two at least, if not of 
all the three classes of staminal principles, is necessary to form an 
alimentary compound well-adapted to their use. 

This view of the nature of aliments is singularly illustrated and 
maintained by the familiar instance of the composition of Milk. All 
other matters appropriated by an-imals as food, exist for themselves ; 
or for the use of the vegetable or animal of which they form a con- 

20* 



234 CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION-. 

stituent part. But milk is designed and prepared by nature expressly 
as food ; and it is the only material throughout the range of organi- 
zation that is so prepared. In milk, therefore, we should expect to 
find a model of what an elementary substance ought to be — a kind 
of prototype, as it were, of nutritious materials in general. Now, 
every sort of milk that is known, is a mixture of the three staminal 
principles we have described ; that is to say, milk always contains 
a saccharine principle, a butyraceous or oily principle, and a caseous, 
or strictly speaking, an albuminous principle. Though in the milk of 
different animals, these three staminal principles exist in endlessly mo- 
dified forms, and in very different proportions ; yet neither of the three 
is at present known to be entirely wanting in the milk of any animal. 

Of all the evidences of design in the whole order of nature, Milk 
affords one of the most unequivocal. No one can for a moment 
doubt the object for which this valuable fluid is prepared. No one 
can doubt that the apparatus by which milk is secreted has been 
formed especially for its secretion. No one will maintain that the 
apparatus for the secretion of milk arose from the wishes or the 
wants of the animal possessing it, or from any fancied plastic en- 
ergy. On the contrary, the rudiments of the apparatus for the secre- 
tion of milk must have actually existed in the body of the animal, 
ready for developement, before it could have felt either wants or de- 
sires. In short, it is manifest that the apparatus and its uses, were 
designed and made what they are, by the great Creator of the uni- 
verse ; and on no other supposition, can their existence be explained. 

The composition of the substances, by which animals are usually 
nourished, favours the mixture of the primary staminal alimentary 
principles ; since most of these substances are compounds, of at least 
two, of the staminal principles. Thus, most of the gramineous and 
herbaceous matters contain the saccharine and the glutinous princi- 
ples ; while every part of an animal contains at least albumen and oil. 
Perhaps, therefore, it is impossible to name a substance constituting 
the food of the more perfect animals, which is not essentially a 
natural compound of at least two, if not of all the three great princi- 
ples of aliment. But it is in the artificial food of man that we see 
this great principle of mixture most strongly exemplified. He. dis- 
satisfied with the spontaneous productions of nature, culls from 
every source; and by the force of his reason, or rather of his in- 
stinct, forms in every possible manner, and under every disguise, the 
same great alimentary compound. This after all his cooking and his 
art, how much soever he may be disinclined to believe it, is the sole 
object of his labour; and the more nearly his results approach to 
this object, the more nearly do they approach perfection. Even in the 
utmost refinements of bis luxury, and in his choicest delicacies, the 
same great principle is attended* to; and his sugar and Hour, his eggs 
and butter, in all their various forms and combinations, are nothing 
more or Less, than disguised imitations of the great alimentary proto- 
type milk, as furnished to him by nature. 



i 



235 



CHAPTER III. 

OF THE DIGESTIVE PROCESS ; AND OF THE GENERAL ACTION OF THE 
STOMACH AND DUODENUM. 

We proceed now lo consider the most important function of the 
stomach, by which the assimilation of the food is begun. But before 
that function can be well understood, it is necessary to make a few 
remarks on the influence of water, in modifying the intimate con- 
stitution and the peculiar properties of alimentary substances. We 
have intentionally delayed these remarks, in order that in this place 
the chemical influence of water might be more strikingly exemplified. 
Water enters into the composition of most organized bodies in 
two separate forms ; which must be clearly distinguished, and which 
it is requisite that the reader should always bear in mind. Water 
may constitute an essential element of a substance, as of sugar or of 
starch in their dryest states ; in which case, the water cannot be dis- 
united without destroying the compound : or water may constitue an 
accidental ingredient of a substance, as of sugar or of starch in their 
moist states ; in which case more or less of the water may frequently 
be removed, without destroying the essential properties of the com- 
pound. Now, a very large number of organized bodies, (perhaps 
all those to which our present inquiry relates) contain water in both 
these forms; both as an essential element, and as an accidental in- 
gredient ; and in most instances, it is impossible to discriminate be- 
tween the water that is essential, and that which is accidental. The 
mode of union, however, among the elements of bodies, in these two 
states of their combination with water, must be altogether different. 
Wherein the difference consists, is very imperfectly known; but per- 
haps the following remarks may throw some light on the subject; at 
least, they will serve to point out, the nature of these two modes of 
union, to the reader. 

In the first part of this volume, we stated that the molecular, or 
combining, weights of carbon and of water are, by chemists, usually 
considered to be represented by the numbers 6 and 9 ; the weight of 
hydrogen being one. We also advanced the opinion, that the mole- 
cules or atoms of carbon and of water, where more than one exist, 
instead of remaining separate, as is now supposed, are associated 
together into groups, or supermolecules ; and that carbon, water, and 
similar bodies, always enter into combination, not as single molecules, 
but as one supermolecule. To illustrate our meaning, let us take as 
examples, the state of combination of the molecules constituting the 
different varieties of sugar. 

Sugar from the cane, in its purest state, and when as free as pos- 
sible from accidental water, is, according to the present language of 



236 CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION. 

chemists, composed of 9 atoms of carbon and 8 atoms of water. 
Now, we suppose these 9 atoms of carbon, and 8 atoms of water, to 
be associated into two supermolecules, weighing (9x6) 54, and 
(8*9) 72, respectively. So that, we conceive a molecule of sugar 
from the cane to be a binary compound, of a supermolecule, of car- 
bon weighing 54, and a supermolecule of water weighing 72. Again, 
the sugar of honey, according to the present language of chemists, 
is composed of 9 atoms of carbon, and 12 atoms of water ; or, ac- 
cording to our view of molecular arrangement, the sugar of honey 
is composed of two supermolecules, one of them, carbon, weighing 
54, as in the sugar of the cane — the other, water, weighing no less 
than (12x9) 108. A similar statement may be given of the composi- 
tion of Lignin, another of the saccharine class of bodies. This sub- 
stance, which, in all its various forms appears to consist essentially 
of equal weights of carbon and water, may be said to be composed 
of 9 atoms of carbon, and 6 atoms of water ; or, according to our 
views, of two supermolecules weighing (9X6) 54, and (6x9) 54, 
respectively. Hence, the saccharine class of bodies may be repre- 
sented in the following manner : — 



Lignin. 

Cane Sugar ; Wheat Starch. 

Sugar of honey ; Arrowroot. 

The molecular constitution of the saccharine bodies, above stated, 
may be compared with that of vinegar. According to the present 
language of chemists, vinegar, in its purest and most detached form, 
is composed of 4 atoms of carbon, and 3 atoms of water; or, ac- 
cording to our views, of two supermolecules weighing (4x6) 24. 
and (3x9) 27, respectively. Thus, the molecular constitution of these 
two different states of vinegar may be represented as follows : — 

Carbon. Water. 

24 -+- 27 Absolute vinegar. 

24 -f- 36 Crystallized or solid vinegar. 

We have stated the composition of vinegar, in order to draw the 
attention of the reader, to the difference between the supermolecule 
of the carbon in that acid, and the supermolecule of the carbon 
in the saccharine class of bodies ; a difference to which these two 
classes of bodies probably owe the striking differences in their sen- 
sible properties. But why the supermolecule of carbon should be 54 
in bodies of the saccharine class, and why this supermolecule should 
in general exist in the self-attractive form, and produce sweetness: 
or why the supermolecule of carbon in vinegar should be 24, and 
why this supermolecule should have such a tendency, as it exhibit-. 
to assume the self-repulsive form, and to produce sourness j we do 
not know, and probably shall never be able fully to explain. Still, 
there can be little doubt that a careful and philosophical examination 



Carbon. 


Water 


54 + 


54 


54 + 


72 


54 -f- 


108 



PROCESS OF DIGESTION IN ANIMALS. 237 

of the phenomena, would go far to dispel the obscurity in which the 
subject is now involved. 

Such are the principles, which, we conceive to regulate the chemi- 
cal union of organic, and indeed of all other compounds ; and if 
chemical union be so regulated, the inferences are most curious and 
important. With these inferences in general, we have at present no 
concern : but those more particularly relating to alimentary com- 
pounds are the following : — 

First. We would draw the attention of the reader to the contrast 
between the two supermolecules of carbon, and of water, constitu- 
ting sugar ; the supermolecule of carbon being uniform throughout 
the whole saccharine class, while the supermolecule of water is that 
which is variable. Now, there is reason to believe that this contrast 
holds in other instances ; and that in different organized substances 
of the same kind, the supermolecule of carbon, or of some of its 
compounds, remains the permanent and characteristic element ; and 
that the different modifications are produced by variations in the 
supermolecule of water ; which may be called the modifying super- 
molecule. 

Secondly. The manner of the operation of the modifying agency 
maybe thus illustrated. If to a portion of cane sugar, we add that quan- 
tity of water, which, by an easy calculation, we learn is necessary to 
be united with it, in order to its conversion into sugar of honey ; we 
find that we cannot succeed in producing such conversion ; and that 
the excess of water which had been added, flies off, and leaves the 
cane sugar in its original state. On the other hand, if we apply heat 
to the sugar of honey ; though we may indeed drive off part of the 
water essentially associated with that sugar, we do not obtain sugar 
similar to that of the cane ; but we destroy, or altogether decompose 
the sugar of honey. These facts, therefore, show that the excess of 
water, constituting the difference of the sugar of honey from the 
sugar of cane, is really in some state of essential union, incapable of 
being imitated ; while, in the cane sugar, the water may exist as an 
accidental ingredient only. In fact, according to our views of mole- 
cular arrangement ; every individual supermolecule of the weaker 
sugar contains a portion of this excess of water, as an essential ele- 
ment of its composition. Hence such water cannot be separated from 
any compound, without destroying the entire crasis, or constitution, 
of its molecular elements ; which, as in the case of the sugar of honey, 
we find, by experiment, to be the result. On the other hand, we sup- 
pose the molecules of accidental water to form no essential element of 
the molecules of sugar, or of other bodies, but to be only loosely asso- 
ciated with them; and hence, the ease with which accidental water 
may be separated without destroying such bodies. 

Thirdly. It maybe advanced as a general rule, that the larger the 
number, representing the weight of the supermolecule of any com- 
pound substance ; whether such number represent the characteristic, 



238 CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION. 

or the modifying supermolecule ; the more easily may that compound 
substance be decomposed. Thus, the sugar of honey is more easily 
decomposed — is much less permanent, than the sugar of the cane ; 
and the purest sugar, is much less permanent than Lignin. In like 
manner, when water is the modifying element of any compound, as 
it is in most organic compounds, the larger the number representing 
the supermolecule of the water, the greater, for the most part, is the 
solubility of the compound. 

Fourthly. There are, at present, no chemical terms corresponding 
to those differences of composition, which we have brought under 
the notice of the reader. Now, the terms strong and weak, which in 
commerce, distinguish the different varieties of sugar, are sufficiently 
expressive ; we have, therefore, made choice of them, to denote the 
similar varieties of other organic compounds. Thus, when we speak of 
a strong compound ; we mean that its constituent supermolecules are, 
like those of strong cane sugar, less complicated than the supermo- 
lecules of a weak principle, like those of the sugar of honey. Again, 
there are no terms expressive of the conversion of a strong substance 
into a weak substance, or the contrary. To express such conversion 
we have adopted the terms reduction, and completion. 

In the above illustrations of the modifying influence of water in 
organic compounds, we have selected sugar as our example,' solely 
from its being the most familiar. But, as we have more than once 
noticed, exactly the same laws appear to regulate the composition of 
all organized bodies. Thus in the strong, fixed, and solid, oils or fats, 
the characteristic supermolecule of which, as we have already said, 
has some relation to olefiant gas ; the modifying molecule of water 
is very small, perhaps, in some oleaginous bodies, is even a submole- 
cule. Whereas, in alcohol, which is the weakest conditition of the 
oily principle, the weight of the modifying supermolecule of water is 
more than half that of the olefiant gas, and alcohol is perfectly solu- 
ble in water. 

Gelatinous and albuminous substances, also, exhibit precisely the 
same variations. The strong tenaceous glue, employed in the arts, 
is made from the firmer parts of the hides of old animals; while the 
gelatinous size, or weak glue, is made from the skins of younger and 
more delicate animals. These two varieties of glue differ from one 
another, in the weights of the modifying supermolecules of water 
which enter into their composition. In genera], it may be observed, 
that the substances composing the frame of old and of young animals. 
differ chiefly in the weights of their modifying supermolecules ol 
water; and that the dissimilarity of their properties, is chiefly owing 
to this difference. 

If the reader has clearly apprehended, and will bear in mind, the 
principles that have now been stated, as regulating the chemical 
constitution of organized bodies, and the modes in which they are 
influenced by their modifying constituent, water: he Will be able to 



PROCESS OF DIGESTION IN ANIMALS. 239 

accompany us in the observations we are about to offer ; and he 
will thus, more especially, be able to form a general conception of 
the chemical operations of the stomach. The operations of the sto- 
mach, viewed as a whole, may be stated as follows : — 

1. The stomach has the power of dissolving alimentary sub- 
stances, or, at least of bringing them to a semifluid state. This ope- 
ration seems to be altogether chemical ; and is probably effected by 
reducing the properties of these alimentary substances. 

2. The stomach has, within certain limits, the power of changing 
into one another, the simple alimentary principles, which have been 
described in the last chapter. Unless the stomach possessed such a 
power, that uniformity in the composition of the chyle, which we 
may imagine to be indispensable to the existence of every animal, 
could not be preserved. This part of the operations of the stomach, 
appears, like the reducing process, to be chemical ; but not so easy 
of accomplishment ; it may be termed the converting operation of 
the stomach. 

3. The stomach must have, within certain limits, the power of 
organizing and vitalizing the different alimentary substances; so as 
to render them fit for being brought into more intimate union with a 
living body, than the crude aliments can be supposed to be. It is 
impossible to imagine, that this organizing agency of the stomach 
can be chemical. This agency is vital, and its nature is completely 
unknown. 

1. Of the Reducing Powers of the Stomach. — In order to render 
more intelligible that function of the stomach, which it owes to its 
reducing power, let us endeavour to trace the series of phenomena, 
which appear to arise during the conversion of simple albuminous 
matter into the albumen of the chyme ; without taking into account 
any other change. 

When a portion of fluid albumen, as of the white of an egg, or of 
milk, is introduced into the stomach of an animal, as of a dog, it 
instantly becomes solid ; or, in ordinary language, is coagulated. 
This coagulation is probably a mere chemical change ; for the same 
change would, under similar circumstances, take place out of the 
body. That is to say, if the white of an egg, or milk, were mixed 
with a fluid more or less acid, like that which exists in the stomachs 
of animals while the food is undergoing the process of digestion ; it 
would be coagulated. There may be, however, and probably is, 
some object in the change produced by coagulation ; since the sto- 
machs of animals are fitted to operate chiefly on solid matters. 
Admitting the object of the change, we can hardly consider it to be 
essential to the subsequent process ; for gelatine, a staminal alimen- 
tary principle, nearly resembling albumen in its composition, under- 
goes, under similar circumstances, no such solidifying change. The 
albumen thus solidified by the stomach into a mass or curd, is soon 
altered further ; more especially that part of the mass, with which 



240 CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION. 

the membrane of the stomach is in contact. The curdy mass as- 
sumes a gelatinous appearance ; then each portion is successively 
more and more softened, till at length, the whole becomes nearly 
fluid, and after some additional modification, gradually passes into 
the state of chyme. Through all these apparent changes, however, 
the albumen has undergone no real change. What was introduced 
into the stomach as albumen, is still albumen in the chyme ; at least 
chemists have pronounced it so to be. Yet it has assumed an 
appearance altogether different. The albumen of the egg, out of 
the stomach, may be coagulated by heat, into a firm elastic solid. 
The albumen of the chyme is indeed coagulable by heat, but its co- 
agulation is so imperfect, and so wanting in tenacity, as to offer a 
striking contrast with the coagulated albumen of the egg. What 
then, in the stomach, has happened to the albumen 1 Viewing only 
its susceptibility of coagulation, the albumen has merely become 
chemically combined with a portion of water. The solid and tena- 
cious albumen has, by this combination with water, been reduced 
to the weakest possible state — to the delicate state, as it were, of 
infancy ; in short, to a state precisely analogous to that of the weak 
sugars, and other organic compounds, as compared with the strong 
and perfect varieties of the same substances, described in the pre- 
ceding chapter. 

Such is, we believe, an accurate account of the merely solvent or 
reducing powers of the stomach. We have next to show the means 
by which this solution or reduction is effected. 

The process of combining different substances with water, and of 
thus reducing them from a stronger to a weaker condition, may, in 
some instances, and to a certain degree, be effected artificially. But 
in no instance do we appear to be able to invert the process ; or 
to complete an organic compound, by again separating the water. 
For example, we can, in some respects, make a strong sugar weak, 
but we cannot change a weak into a strong sugar ; though such a 
change, within certain limits, seems to be, to the organic agents, 
just as easy, as the reducing process. 

The different operations of cookery, as roasting, boiling, baking. 
&c. have all a reducing effect; and may, therefore, be considered 
as preparatory to the solvent action of the stomach. Of these ope- 
rations, Man's nature has taught him to avail himself, and they con- 
stitute the chief means by which he is enabled to be omnivorous : 
for, without such a preparation, a very large portion of the matters 
which he now adopts as food, would be completely indigestible. By 
different culinary processes, the most refractory substances, can 
often be rendered nutritious. Thus, by alternate baking and boiling, 
the woody fibre itself may be converted into a sort of amylaceous 
pulp; not only possessing most of the properties o\ the amylaceous 
principle, but capable of being formed into bread. The culinary 
art engages no small share of attention among mankind : but. unfor- 



PROCESS OF DIGESTION IN ANIMALS. 241 

tunately, cooks are seldom chemists ; nor indeed do they understand 
the most simple of the chemical principles of their art. Hence, 
their labour is most frequently employed, not in rendering wholesome 
articles of food more digestible, which is the true object of cookery ; 
but in making unwholesome things palatable; foolishly imagining 
that what is agreeable to the palate, must be also healthful to the 
stomach. A greater fallacy can scarcely be conceived ; for, though 
by a beautiful arrangement of Providence, what is wholesome is 
seldom disagreeable; the converse is by no means applicable to 
man ; since those things which are pleasant to the taste are not 
unfrequently very injurious. Animals, indeed, for the most part, 
avoid, instinctively, all unwholesome food ; probably because every- 
thing that would be prejudicial, is actually distasteful to them. But 
as regards man, the choice of articles of nourishment has been left 
entirely to his reason. 

In order to illustrate the importance of a judicious adaptation of 
cookery, we may observe, that the particular function of the sto- 
mach, now under consideration, namely, the dissolving or reducing 
function, is liable to very great derangements. In some individuals, 
the reducing power is so weak, that their stomach is almost incapa- 
ble of dissolving solid food of the most simple kind. In such a state 
of the stomach, a crude diet of the flesh of animals in a hardened 
state, or of other compact substances, is little else than poisonous ; 
while the same animal and vegetable matters often agree well, if 
reduced to a pulpy state. On the other hand, as in the disease 
termed Diabetes, the solvent powers of the stomach are often inor- 
dinately increased ; and every article of food is dissolved and 
absorbed almost as soon as it is swallowed; In such cases, a diet 
and a mode of preparation are required, directly the reverse of those 
which are found to be so beneficial, when there is a debility of the 
solvent pow r ers ; and aliments which are firm and solid, but at the 
same time nutritious, must be chosen. 

Regarding the intimate nature of the agency, by which the com- 
bination of alimentary substances with water is effected in the sto- 
mach, w r e cannot be said to possess much certain knowledge. This 
combination appears to be chiefly owing to the agency of a fluid, 
secreted by the stomach; the glands for the formation of which 
fluid, are most numerous toward the pyloric orifice. The aliment 
having been previously broken down by mastication, and having 
received an admixture of saliva and of other fluids, is brought into 
contact with the fluid secreted by the stomach ; by which secretion, 
or by some other energy there in operation, the food that has been 
introduced into the stomach is associated with water; and thus 
becomes itself more or less a fluid. Of this important secretion of 
the stomach, chlorine, in some state or other of combination, is an 
ingredient ; it would seem a necessary ingredient ; for the secretion 
in its healthy state, always contains more or less of chlorine, the 

21 



242 CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION. 

powerful influence of which elementary principle, seems mainly to 
contribute towards effecting the union of the food with water. The 
chlorine, thus so indispensable to the reducing process, is perhaps 
more frequently the subject of derangement, than anything concerned 
w r ith the assimilation of the food. It often happens that instead of 
chlorine, or a little free muriatic acid, a large quantity of free muri- 
atic acid is elicited ; which not only gives rise to much secondary 
uneasiness, but more or less retards the process of reduction itself. 
The source of this chlorine or muriatic acid, must be the common 
salt which exists in the blood : to suppose that it is generated, is 
quite an unnecessary hypothesis. The chlorine is therefore secreted 
from the blood ; and it may be demanded, what is the nature of the 
agency, capable of separating that element from a fluid so hetero- 
geneous as the blood ? We are acquainted with one agent that exerts 
such a power, namely, electricity; and this agent, as we formerly 
observed, seems to be employed by the animal economy for its ope- 
rations, in the same manner, and on the same principles, as the ma- 
terials themselves are employed, from which the animal body is 
constructed. Perhaps, therefore the decomposition of the salt of the 
blood may be fairly referred to the immediate agency of this princi- 
ple, electricity. But here the question arises, What becomes of the 
soda from which the muriatic acid has been disunited ? The soda 
remains behind, of course in the blood, and a portion of it no doubt, 
is requisite to preserve the weak alkaline condition essential to the 
fluidity of the blood. But x the larger part of this soda is probably 
directed to the liver, and is^elicited with the bile in the duodenum, 
where it is thus again brought into union with the acid, that had 
been separated from the blood, by the stomach. These observations, 
illustrating the importance of common salt in the animal economy, 
seem to explain, in a satisfactory manner, that instinctive craving 
after this substance, which is shown by all animals. 

Admitting that the decomposition of the salt of the blood is 
owing to the immediate agency of galvanism; we have, in the 
principal digestive organs, a kind of galvanic apparatus, of which 
the mucous membrane of the stomach, and perhaps that of the in- 
testinal canal generally, may be considered as the acid or positive 
pole ; while the hepatic system may, in the same view, be consi- 
dered as the alkaline or negative pole. Whether such galvanic ac- 
tion be admitted or not; and the admission is of no very great im- 
portance ; what we have above stated may be received as a simple 
expression of the facts, in so far as they relate to the saline con- 
stituents of the blood. Moreover, be the nature of the energies 
what they may, by which these changes are effected : along with 
these changes, and probably by the aid of the same energies, other 
very important changes or processes are carried on. to some of 
which we shall presently have occasion to allude. In the mean 
time, we may close this section by observing that there is strong 



PROCESS OF DIGESTION IN ANIMALS. 243 

reason to believe, that the solvent power, which we have described, 
or some power having a great resemblance to it, exists not only in 
the stomach, but in every part of an animal body. In all animals 
there are minute tubes, called absorbents, which originate in every 
part of their bodies, and at length uniting, enter the sanguiferous 
system along with the chyle. Now, the office of these tubes, is to 
remove all those portions of the animal frame, which after having 
performed their several functions, require to be withdrawn. Of 
course, before solid parts can be thus removed, they must be dis- 
solved, {digested in fact ;) and such solution, in many instances, is 
probably effected, as it is in digestion, by combining these solid 
parts with water. This supposed analogy between the solvent 
powers of the stomach, and those which must prevail all over the 
body, seems to be strongly confirmed by that similarity of structure 
and of function existing between the lacteals and the absorbents : 
they indeed form but one system. We shall resume this subject 
hereafter. 

2. Of the Powers of Conversion possessed by the Stomach. — Though 
the proportions of the different ingredients of the chyle, as ultimately 
formed, are liable to be much varied, according to the nature of 
the food ; yet, whatever the nature of the food may be, the general 
composition and character of the chyle, remain always the same. 
The stomach must, therefore, be endowed with a power or faculty, 
the agency of which is to secure this uniform composition of the 
chyle, by appropriate action upon such materials, as circumstances 
may bring within its reach. Two, indeed, of the chief materials 
from which chyle is formed, namely, the albuminous and the olea- 
ginous principles, may be considered to be already fitted for the pur- 
poses of the animal economy, without undergoing any essential 
change in their composition. But the saccharine class of aliments, 
which form a very large part of the food of all animals, except of 
those subsisting entirely on flesh, are by no means adapted for such 
speedy assimilation. Indeed, one or more essential changes must 
take place in saccharine elements, previously to their conversion, 
either into the albuminous, or into the oleaginous principles. Most 
probably, under ordinary circumstances, these essential changes 
are altogether chemical ; that is to say, they are such as do take 
place, or rather, such as would take place, if the elements of the 
substances thus changed in the stomach, could, out of the body, be 
so collocated, as to bring into action the affinities necessary to pro- 
duce these changes. Thus, as we know, the saccharine principle 
spontaneously becomes alcohol ; which, as has been stated, is merely 
an oleaginous body of a weak kind. When, therefore, in the sto- 
mach, it is requisite that sugar be converted into oil, it is probable 
that the sugar passes through precisely the same series of changes 
it undergoes, out of the body, during its conversion into alcohol. 
We cannot trace the conversion of sugar into albumen ; because we 



244 CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION. 

are ignorant of the relative composition, and of the laws which 
regulate the changes, of these two substances. The origin of the 
azote in the albumen, is likewise at present unknown to us ; though 
in all ordinary cases, it seems to be appropriated from some external 
source. That the oleaginous principle may be converted into most, 
if not into all the matters necessary for the existence of animal bo- 
dies, seems to be proved by the well-known fact, that the life of an 
animal may be prolonged by the absorption of the oleaginous matter, 
contained within its own body. Thus, many hybernating animals, 
when they retire in autumn, to sleep during the winter, are enor- 
mously fat. But while they sleep, their fat is gradually removed ; 
till they awake in the spring quite divested of it, and in a state of 
inanition. 

The reader will have remarked that we have made use of the 
term ordinary circumstances ; and perhaps it may not be amiss to 
explain what meaning we attach to that term. 

When an animal is duly fed according to that diet which is na- 
tural to it, and for which its organization has been adapted ; a regu- 
lar and ordinary series of changes takes place within the animal, 
and the alimentary matters are converted into chyle. But one 
general characteristic of organized beings is that within certain 
limits, and for a certain time, they possess the power of varying 
their habits, and of accommodating themselves to circumstances. 
Under extraordinary circumstances, therefore, extraordinary changes 
must, and do, take place. In some instances, these changes out of 
the ordinary course, are to an extent altogether astonishing ; and 
such as defy our utmost calculation. The assimilating organs ap- 
pear even to decompose principles which are still considered as 
elementary, nay, to form azote or carbon ; so that it is impossible to 
define what, on an emergency, these organs are capable of doing. 
But what is thus done by these organs on an emergency, will usually, 
be found to constitute an exception to what they do in ordinary ; 
their ordinary mode of action being always that which is most sim- 
ple, and which is thus to be considered as the rule. 

3. Of the Organizing and Vitalizing Powers of the Stomach — 
In this part of our investigation, we meet the real difficulties we 
have to overcome in explaining the operations of living beings. 
The whole of the great and essential changes which alimentary sub- 
stances undergo, may, and perhaps will be, traced by care and at- 
tention ; but all beyond, will probably remain for even- unknown to 
us. Now at least, it may be truly said, that though we understand, 
in some degree, the chemical changes; of the vitalizing influence 
we know absolutely nothing. There is, however, every reason to 
believe that vitality is imparted through the agency of the living 
animal itself. For though, from the natural composition o\' alimen- 
tary substances, they be to a certain extent, fitted for the pur, 
of the animal economy; yet, alone, they are incapable of uniting 



PROCESS OF DIGESTION IN ANIMALS. 245 

themselves with the animal frame ; and unless the living economy- 
contribute likewise its share of the labour, the future work of assimi- 
lation will be incomplete. 

Of the Changes the Food undergoes in the Duodenum. — We alluded 
in general terms to the bile and the pancreatic fluids, when we were 
treating of the organs by which they are secreted. We have now 
to consider, more particularly, the nature of these secretions, and 
their share in the performance of the functions of the duodenum. 

With the yellow colour, and the intensely bitter taste of the bile, 
all are familiar: we need not, therefore, dwell on the sensible pro- 
perties of the secretion, but proceed to notice its chemical com- 
position. The chemical composition of the bile is very heteroge- 
neous, though not perhaps so heterogeneous as has been represented ; 
since it is probable that many of the ingredients said to be con- 
tained in the secretion, are products that have resulted from the 
methods employed in its analysis. Bile, like all animal fluids, is 
composed essentially of water ; but the solid matters contained in 
the bile, are nearly altogether formed from one or more proximate 
principles, in which carbon and hydrogen predominate. These 
proximate principles exist simultaneously, if not in conjunction with 
soda, and with various salts of soda, besides other substances. The 
properties of the bile vary somewhat in different animals ; but in 
all animals its essential characters remain wonderfully similar. 

We are much less acquainted with the properties of the pan- 
creatic fluid, than with those of the bile. The nature of the pan- 
creatic fluid was formerly supposed to be very analogous to that 
of the saliva ; but recent observations have shown that it contains 
albumen, and a curdy substance. The pancreatic fluid is, for the 
most part, in a slight degree acid, and holds in solution matters of a 
saline nature, closely resembling those found in all animal fluids. 

When the food that has undergone the first process of digestion 
in the stomach, quits that organ, and enters the duodenum, some 
other changes of a very remarkable kind take place. If the food 
originally contained no albuminous matter, no albumen is developed 
in the stomach ; but immediately on the entrance of the semi-fluid 
mass into the duodenum, and its mixture with the bile and the pan- 
creatic fluids ; albuminous, and other chylous matters, become dis- 
tinctly perceptible. At the same instant, those fluid parts, which in 
the stomach were acid, are so far altered, by the addition of the bile, 
and the pancreatic fluids, as to become neutral, or almost neutral: 
some gas is frequently extricated; and that portion of the food 
which is destined to be excrementitious, is evidently separated. 
The albumen, which is thus found to exist in the chyme, (as the food 
is termed, after it has been acted on by the stomach, and has entered 
the duodenum), may be partly derived from the pancreatic fluid, 
which, as we have already mentioned, has been said to contain 
albumen. But the quantity of albumen, and of other proximate 

21* 



246 CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION. 

principles of the chyle, that are found in the contents of the duo- 
denum, at some distance onward from the pylorus, is much too 
great to be explained in this manner. Indeed, the properties, as 
well as the quantity, of the albuminous matters, show, beyond a 
doubt, that the albuminous matters are developed from the food, 
and constitute the chyle, which is subsequently taken up by the 
lacteals. 

Such are those most interesting, and at the same time obvious, 
phenomena, that are observed in different animals, in which the 
changes produced on the food by the action of the duodenum have 
been examined. These phenomena appear to vary considerably, 
according to the nature of the food ; but so far as we can under- 
stand the phenomena, under every change of food, the essential 
character of the changes which the food undergoes in the duode- 
num, remains unaltered. That is to say: the acid formed in the 
stomach, combines, in the duodenum, with the alkali of the bile; 
the albuminous principles are developed ; and the excrementitious 
matters are, more or less perfectly, separated. Of the nature of 
the more recondite and vitalizing changes which take place in the 
duodenum ; we are in the same state of complete ignorance, as we 
are of the similar changes which take place in the stomach, and 
probably shall long so remain. 

In the preceding remarks on the different processes which take 
place in the stomach and duodenum, and which are necessary for 
the conversion of the food of an animal into the living material of 
its body ; we have endeavoured to distinguish between what, to a cer- 
tain extent, is within our powers of comprehension, and w r hat is com- 
pletely beyond them. It remains to be observed in conclusion, that 
though the three great and essential processes of digestion, namely, 
the reducing, the converting, and the organizing processes be suffi- 
ciently distinct from each other ; yet it is not to be understood that 
they take place in succession, or in the order in which they have 
been described. The fact is, that all these processes go on at the 
same time ; and as soon as a portion of food begins to be dissolved, 
its future changes seem to be determined. If it be necessary that the 
portion of food undergo an essential change, that change is accord- 
ingly begun. If no such change be required, the organizing process 
itself begins simultaneously with the reducing process. The conse- 
quence of this union of the digestive process is, as we have stated, 
that the staminal principles are all developed in the chyle: as soon 
as the excrementitious matters are separated by the biliary and pan- 
creatic fluids. 

Of the Functions of the Alimcntai~y Canal .beyond the Duodenum. — 
Compared with the functions of the stomach and duodenum, the 
functions of the succeeding portions of the alimentary canal, as far 
as we can judge, are unimportant. The digested mass passes from 
the duodenum into the jejunum, and ilium ; though before the food 



PROCESS OF DIGESTION I IV ANIMALS. 247 

reaches the end of the ilium, the whole of the chyle contained in it, 
has been absorbed into the apertures of the numerous tubes named 
lacteah. These tubes open in greater or less number, into the whole 
interior surface of the three portions of the alimentary canal, along 
which the food is moved from the stomach to the colon. From the 
ilium, the undigested or excrementitious matters proceed into the 
coecum; in which cavity, in some animals, as for example, in the 
horse, even these excrementitious matters appear to undergo a second 
digestion ; but in all animals, the contents of the coecum have a very 
different aspect from those of any part of the alimentary canal, 
nearer to the stomach. The mass of excrementitious matters con- 
tinue their course from the coecum into the colon, where they are 
still further changed. The nature of these changes, however, is not 
well understood, though they are probably of no small importance in 
the animal economy. Finally, all the nutritious portions of the food, 
having entered into the system of the animal, nothing remains but 
what is entirely excrementitious. 

Such is a short sketch of the phenomena of digestion and assimi- 
lation, in as far as these processes are effected by the stomach and 
the alimentary canal. The phenomena suggest the following reflec- 
tions : 

First. With regard to the nature and the choice of aliments, and 
the modes of their culinary preparation ; it follows from the observa- 
tions we have offered; that, under similar circumstances, those arti- 
cles of food, which are the least organized, must be the most difficult 
to be assimilated: consequently, that the assimilation of crystallized, or 
very pure substances, must be more difficult, than the assimilation of 
any others. Thus, pure sugar, pure alcohol, and pure oil, are much 
less easy to be assimilated, than substances purely amylaceous ; or 
than that peculiar condition or mixture of alcohol existing in natural 
wines ; or than butter. In these forms, the assimilation of the sac- 
charine and the oleaginous principles is comparatively easy. Of all 
crystallized matters, pure sugar is perhaps the most easily assimi- 
lated ; but every one is taught by experience, that much less can be 
eaten of articles composed of sugar, than of those composed of amy- 
laceous matters. In some forms of dyspepsia, the effect of pure sugar 
is most pernicious ; perhaps fully as pernicious as that of pure alco- 
hol. Nature has not furnished either pure sugar or pure starch ; and 
these substances are always the results of artificial processes, more 
or less elaborate ; in which, as in many of the processes of cookery, 
man has been over-officious ; and has studied the gratification of his 
palate, rather than followed the dictates of his reason. In many 
dyspeptic individuals, the assimilating and preservative powers of 
the system, are already so much weakened, as to be unable to resist 
the crystallization of a portion of their fluids. Thus in gouty invalids, 
how often do we see chalk-stones formed in every joint 1 Now, with 
so little control over their own fluids, how can they reasonably hope 
to assimilate extraneous crystallization ? If, therefore, such an in- 



248 CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION. 

valid, on sitting down to a luxurious modern banquet, composed of 
sugar, and oil, and albumen, in every state of combination, except 
those best adapted for food, would pause a moment, and ask himself 
the question ; Is this debilitated and troublesome stomach of mine, 
endowed with the alchemy requisite for the conversion of all these 
things into wholesome flesh and blood ? He would probably adopt 
a simpler repast, and would thus save himself from much uneasiness. 
The truth is, that many of the elaborate dishes of our ingenious con- 
tinental neighbours, are scarcely nutritious, or designed to be so. 
They are mere vehicles for different stimuli — different ways, in short, 
of gratifying that low animal propensity, by which so many are 
urged to the use of ardent spirits, or of various narcotics. In one 
respect indeed, namely, that of reducing to a state of pulp those re- 
factory substances which we have before mentioned, the culinary 
processes of our neighbours are much superior to ours ; but in nearly 
every other respect, and most of all, in the general use of pure sugar 
and pure oil, their cookery is eminently injurious to all persons who 
have w r eak digestion. On the other hand, in this country, we do not 
in general pay sufficient attention to the reducing processes of the 
culinary art. Everything is firm and crude; and though the mode 
of preparation be less captivating ; the quantity of indigestible ali- 
ment is quite as great in our culinary productions, as in those of 
France. 

We are not, however, writing a treatise on cookery or dietetics ; 
but in treating of the function of digestion, it is impossible altogether 
to pass over these important subjects. The foregoing observations 
are merely intended as illustrations of those general principles which 
often regulate the choice, and the preparation of the food of man- 
kind, in a state of civilized society. Reason is too little followed, the 
indulgence of the palate is the sole object ; so that the organs of di- 
gestion already enfeebled, and incapacitated for the assimilation, 
even of the most proper nourishment, are daily oppressed with a 
task for which they are altogether unequal. The consequence is, 
that though for a time the labour be sustained, the digestive energies 
are at length overcome. The dyspeptic being passes half his days 
in misery ; his offspring inherit their parents' constitution ; and if 
they persist in a like course of slow poison ; after a few generations, 
the race becomes extinct, — " his name even is cut off from among 
men !" Providence has gifted man with reason ; to his reason, there- 
fore, is left the choice of his food and drink, and not to instinct, as 
among the lower animals : it thus becomes his duty to apply his 
reason to that object ; to shun excess in quantity, and what is noxious 
in quality ; to adhere, in short, to the simple and the natural : among 
which the bounty of his Maker has afforded him an ample selection ; 
and beyond which if he devitates, sooner or later, he will suffer the 
penalty. 

Secondly. The view we have now taken ^( the processes o( di 



PROCESS OF DIGESTION IN ANIMALS. 249 

tion, removes in some degree that mysterious character with which 
they have been invested ; and by lessening the field of our inquiry, 
brings us nearer to our object. We had previously known, that the 
articles employed as food by animals are essentially composed of three 
or four elements. But we have now learnt, that all the more perfect of 
those matters on which animals subsist, are compounds of three or 
four proximate principles ; the whole of which compounds, except 
one, are, in their essential characters, identical with those composing 
the frame of the animals themselves. We have also learnt, that owing 
to this identity of composition, many animals are saved the labour 
of forming these proximate principles from their elements ; and have 
only to re-arrange them, as their exigences may require. The task 
of forming the proximate principle is thus left to the inferior animals 
or to plants ; which are endowed with the capacity of compounding 
them from matters still lower than themselves, in the scale of organi- 
zation. Hence there is a series, from the lowest being that derives 
its nourishment from carbon and carbonic acid, up to the most per- 
fect animal existing. Each individual in the series preferring to assi- 
milate those immediately below itself; but having on extraordinary 
occasions, and in a minor degree, the power of assimilating all, not 
only below, but above itself, in the system of organized creation. 

We stated that the immediate influence employed by the organic 
agent is probably galvanism, or the common agents that operate 
among inorganic matters ; and that the digestive apparatus, viewed 
as a whole, seems to be arranged on galvanic principles. We wish, 
however, our readers clearly to understand, that we consider the or- 
ganic agent residing in the ganglionic system of nerves, and employ- 
ing the electric agency, to be not electricity itself ; though the agency 
is probably the lowest kind existing in animal bodies, and only, as it 
were, one degree above the agencies of inanimate matter. We 
dwell on this point the more, because from deficient recollection of 
what electricity is, and what are the living powers acting through 
the nervous system of animals, it has been maintained, nay, has even 
been endeavoured to be experimentally proved, that these nervous 
powers are identical with the powers of electricity. It is impossible 
to imagine a greater fallacy. Admitting that electricity, properly 
directed, could change the proximate elements of the food into those 
of chyle; can we imagine this principle to vary spontaneously its 
mode of operation, so as to produce the same chyle from every sort 
of aliment — that electricity is an intelligent agency acting with a cer- 
tain object ? Besides, if the nervous agency be identical with elec- 
tricity, how different must be its functions in different nerves ; in one 
nerve, for example, digesting and assimilating the food ; in another 
conveying sight ; in a third conveying sound ; in the brain itself, 
shall we say, actually thinking ! As to the experiments, on which it 
has been attempted to rear this most untenable opinion, they prove 
nothing whatever ; and are easily explained on other principles. 



250 CHEMISTRY OP ORGANIZATION. 

Such explanation would be foreign to our present object, were we to 
introduce it here. But there is one observation, which has always 
appeared to us conclusive against this fancied identity of the nervous 
energy with electricity ; and with which, we shall close what we 
have to offer, regarding the present subject. Most persons are aware 
that there are certain fishes endowed with the power of evolving 
electricity, and of communicating a smart shock to other animals. 
Now, in all the fishes in which this power resides, as in the Torpedo, 
there is a complicated apparatus, extending over a large portion of 
the fish's body, expressly for the purpose of forming the electricity, 
which the fish communicates ; thus, proving beyond a doubt, that 
mere nerves are not sufficient to develope electricity ; and that, when 
electricity is wanted, an express and peculiar organ is as requisite 
for its secretion or formation, as for the secretion and formation of 
any other product of the animal economy. 

The reflections suggested by the facts we have now detailed, will 
be given in conjunction with those suggested by the facts to be de- 
tailed in the next chapter. 



CHAPTER IV. 

OF THE PROCESS OP ASSIMILATION SUBSEQUENT TO THOSE IN THE STO- 
MACH AND ALIMENTARY CANAL ; PARTICULARLY OF THE CONVERSION 
OF THE CHYLE INTO BLOOD. ON RESPIRATION, AND ITS USES. OF 
SECRETION. OF THE FINAL DECOMPOSITION OF ORGANIZED BODIES. 
GENERAL REFLECTIONS, AND CONCLUSION. 

1. Of the Passage of the Chyle from the Alimentary Canal into 
the Sanguiferous System; and of the Function of Absorption gene- 
rally. — The Chyle, as we have already said, is taken up from the 
alimentary canal, by numerous minute tubes, named lacteals ; these 
tubes being part of the system of similar tubes, which arise from all 
parts of the body, and are termed absorbents. The whole of the ab- 
sorbing tubes, after passing through various glands, at length unite 
into one or two of larger size ; that on the left side being by far the 
largest, and known by the appellation of \\\c thoracic duct. These 
larger absorbent tubes pour their contained fluids into the veins 
named the sub-clavian ; and thus into the general mass of the blood. 
The exact nature of the changes which the chyle and the lymph 
undergo in their passage through these tubes, is not well understood. 
One change appears to be, that the chyle, as first formed in the 
alimentary canal, is to a certain extent, completed, or freed from 
water, during its course through the lacteals: for though, when the 



ABSORPTION OF THE CHYLE, ECT. 251 

chyle is mixed with the blood, its albuminous principles are much 
less perfectly developed than those of the blood itself; yet their 
developement, on their mixture with blood, is more perfect, than 
when the chyle is first taken up from the alimentary canal. 

The matters conveyed from the other parts of the body, by the 
tubes of the general absorbent system, have, by most physiologists, 
been supposed to be of an excrementitious character. That some 
of the absorbed matters are excrementitious, is very probable ; argu- 
ments may, however, be adduced, to show, that the whole of the 
matters absorbed are by no means excrementitious ; but that they 
are repeatedly consigned to the uses of the vital agency : every new 
organization raising them, as it were, a step higher, and qualifying 
them for those refined and ulterior purposes ; for which the crude 
chyle can hardly be imagined to be at once adapted. 

The circumstances favouring the above opinion, which we are 
now desirous to mention, are — 

First. It is unreasonable, and contrary to everything w r e know 
respecting the operations of the animal economy, to suppose that 
the chyle should be separated from one kind of excrementitious 
matter, in the alimentary canal ; in order to be immediately mixed 
again with other excrementitious matters, in the chyliferous tubes. 
It is, therefore, a just inference, that if the matters contained in the 
absorbents are really and wholly excrementitious, they would be 
carefully kept apart; and would be removed from the system by 
some other means ,than by tubes united with those conveying the 
nutritious fluids. 

Secondly. By admitting that the fluids contained in the absor- 
bent tubes possess a highly animalized character, the design of their 
union with the crude and imperfectly animalized chyle, becomes 
apparent: the fluid in the absorbents will be seen to execute an 
important and necessary office; by raising the vital character of 
the chyle, and qualifying it, for becoming a part of the general mass 
of the blood. We thus obtain a cogent reason, why the fluids taken 
up from the internal surface of the alimentary canal, should be min- 
gled with those that are absorbed from other parts of the body ; a 
mixture which is inexplicable, on the hypothesis of these absorbed 
fluids being wholly excrementitious. 

Thirdly. The gradual developement of the staminal principles of 
animal bodies, by repeated organizing processes, fully accords with 
those general views of the operations of nature which, throughout 
this work, we have endeavoured to illustrate ; and which lead to the 
general conclusion, that the operations of nature are never abrupt, 
but always slow and gradual. Further, it is more reasonable to 
conceive, that matters already assimilated to the animal body, are 
better fitted for its immediate uses ; than those which, like the chyle, 
have only received an imperfect assimilation. 

Fourthly. Many animals can and do live, for a considerable 



252 CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION. 

time, on substances contained in their own bodies. Thus hyber- 
nating animals, as previously stated, have the ability to assimilate 
principles of the blood, gelatine is not mentioned. In fact, though 
further, those matters which have already become part of them- 
selves ; consequently, such a faculty of progressive organization as 
we have supposed, actually exists ; and a sort of digestion is carried 
on in all parts of the body, to fit for absorption and future appro- 
priation, those matters that have been already assimilated. Were 
it necessary, other arguments to the same effect might be added : 
but we shall at present delay the further consideration of the 
assimilating character of the whole absorbent system ; that we may 
recur to it again, in a succeeding part of the present chapter. 

2. Of the Blood, — The blood is that well-known fluid pervading 
the tubes, named from their function the blood-vessels ; which tubes 
are extended more or less over every part of an animal. We have 
already described the general distribution of the blood-vessels ; and 
shall now confine ourselves chiefly to the properties of the blood 
itself. 

The chyle, as we have stated, is poured into the general mass of 
the blood near the heart ; and from the heart is almost immediately 
propelled through the lungs. The chyle, thus set in motion, is not 
only united thoroughly with the blood ; but undergoes those other 
important changes, by which its final conversion into blood is ac- 
complished. The exact nature of these changes is unknown ; but 
they are evidently of a completing character — that is to say, the 
weak hydrated ingredients of the chyle, are freed from a portion of 
the water with which they were associated ; and are transmuted 
into the strong albuminous matter of the blood. 

The chief constituents of the blood are essentially albuminous. 
Blood contains albumen in three states of modification : namely, 
albumen, properly so called ; fibrin ; and the red particles. In ad- 
dition there are oily matters; besides various minute portions of 
other animal matters, and saline matters, all dissolved, or rather 
suspended, in a large quantity of water. The following short table 
exhibits the relative proportions of the constituents of human blood 
to each other, as they exist in most individuals. 

ONE THOUSAND PARTS OF HUMAN BLOOD CONTAIN 



Of Water ...... 


783,37 


Fibrin ---.-. 


2,83 


Albumen ..... 


67,25 


Colouring matters .... 


126;S1 


Fatty matters, in various states - 


5,16 


Various undefined animal matters, and salts 


15,08 




1000,00' 


* Le Canu ; mean of two analyses. 





RESPIRATION. 253 

The reader will not fail to remark, that among these constituents 
existing most abundantly in various animal structures, gelatine is 
never found in the blood, or in any product of glandular secretion. 
We formerly noticed that gelatine appears to rank lower than albu- 
men in the scale of organized substances; and we may now add, 
that a given weight of gelatine, contains at least three or four per 
cent, less carbon, than an equal weight of albumen. The produc- 
tion of gelatine from albumen must, therefore, be a reducing pro- 
cess. We shall presently have occasion to revert to these facts. 
In the mean time we subjoin the few observations we have to offer, 
on the organization or structure of the blood. 

The organization of the blood is even more wonderful than its 
chemical composition, and is still less understood. The red portion 
of the blood, for example, is composed of innumerable minute glo- 
bules, varying in size in different animals ; and in all instances, 
highly organized : the real structure indeed of these globules is very 
imperfectly known ; but they are generally supposed to be formed 
of solid colourless nuclei, within red vesicles. The fibrin, also, is 
diffused through the mass of the blood in a state of equally minute 
subdivision ; though the particles of the fibrin are colourless, and 
their magnitude much less than that of the red particles. From 
this inferiority in size, some physiologists have been led to think, 
that the colourless particles of the fibrin, are identical with the 
nuclei of the red particles. During the life of an animal, the 
particles of the fibrin, as well as the red particles of its blood, seem 
to be in a state of extreme self-repulsion ; by which self-repulsion, 
the union of these particles is prevented ; except as the economy of 
the animal may require, and may determine. After death, however, 
or in blood withdrawn from the body of a living animal, the pro- 
perty of self-repulsion, more especially among the fibrinous parti- 
cles of the blood, ceases, and they readily cohere : this cohesion is 
termed the coagulation of the blood. Much beautiful design is pro- 
bably concealed under that peculiar organization of the blood, to 
which it owes its coagulating tendency. One result of the coagu- 
lation of the blood, indeed, is as obvious as it is important; namely, 
the prevention of hemorrhage. If the blood did not coagulate, the 
existence of animals would be most precarious ; as on the slightest 
injury, they would be liable to bleed to death. 

3. Of Respiration. — The function of Respiration, or breathing, is 
one of the most important in the animal economy, and cannot, like 
many of the other functions, be suspended ; the interruption of that 
function being immediately destructive of life. When we described 
the phenomena of the circulation of the blood, we observed, that the 
blood, in passing through the lungs, is exposed to the action of the 
atmospheric air. Now, during this exposure of the blood to the 
atmospheric air, it undergoes certain changes. The blood from the 
right side of the heart, when it enters the lungs, is of a dark red co- 

22 



254 CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION. 

lour ; it is then dispersed, in a state of most minute subdivision, 
through the ultimate vessels of the lungs, and in these vessels is 
brought into contact with the atmospheric air, and becomes of a 
bright red colour. In other words, the blood changes in the lungs 
its venous appearance, and assumes the character of arterial blood. 
The blood thus arterialized, returns to the left side of the heart, and 
from that organ, is propelled through the whole arteries of the body. 
In the minute terminations of the arteries, the blood again loses its 
florid hue, and, re-assuming its dark red colour, is returned to the 
veins, to the right side of the heart ; to be exposed as before to the 
influence of the atmospheric air, and to undergo the same succes- 
sion of changes. 

On examining the respired air, a remarkable alteration of its pro- 
perties is found to have taken place ; a portion of its oxygen has 
disappeared, and a similar bulk of carbonic acid gas, has been sub- 
stituted. With respect to the origin of this carbonic acid gas, there 
have been various opinions. Formerly, the greater number of 
physiologists maintained, that carbon, in some form, was excreted 
by the lungs ; and that this excreted carbon, uniting with the oxygen 
of the inspired air, was converted into carbonic acid gas. No one 
imagined that oxygen gas could be passing inwards through the 
membrane of the lungs, while carbonic acid gas was, at the same 
time, passing outwards, through the same membrane. Accurate ob- 
servations have, however, demonstrated, that such a simultaneous 
passage of gases .really takes place through the membrane of the 
lungs; and the observations are not confined to the two gaseous bo- 
dies in the lungs ; but are applicable to all gases whatever, under 
similar circumstances. In consequence of these observations, it 
seems now to be generally admitted, that the oxygen of the atmo- 
spheric air is absorbed by the blood, and, in some unknown state of 
combination, reaches the extreme subdivisions of the arteries; where 
it is united with a portion of carbon, and forms carbonic acid gas : 
that this carbonic acid gas is retained in some unknown state of 
combination in the venous blood; till, in the lungs, it is expelled, and 
oxygen is absorbed in its stead ; according to the laws which regu- 
late the diffusion of gaseous bodies, formerly explained. Further. 
with the carbonic acid gas, a large quantity of aqueous vapour, as 
we have stated, is at the same time separated. 

It would be foreign to the objects of this treatise, were we to en- 
ter further into the reasons for the view we have given of the phe- 
nomena of respiration. These reasons are many and strong; ami 
seem indeed to prove clearly, that the changes which the blood un- 
dergoes, during its circulation through the body, arc as we have 
described them. We shall, therefore, assume that our view of re- 
spiration is correct; and shall offer a few remarks on the attendant 
circumstances, and on the consequences of respiration. 

First. To what influence are we to ascribe the different colours 



RESPIRATION. 255 

of arterial and of venous blood 1 The opinion formerly held, was, 
that the arterial colour arose from the absorption of oxygen ; and 
the venous colour from the presence of carbon. But recent obser- 
vations seem to show that the change in the colour of the blood 
during its circulation, if not entirely independent of oxygen, is much 
influenced by the saline matters ; particularly by the common salt, 
which the blood contains: and that the dark colour of venous blood, 
is principally owing to the presence of carbonic acid gas. 

Secondly. What is the source of the carbonic acid in venous 
blood, and of the aqueous vapour that is expelled from the lungs'? 
These questions cannot be answered with certainty. But some ob- 
servations lately made, have induced us to believe, that the conversion 
of albuminous matters into gelatine, is one great source of the car- 
bonic acid in venous blood. Gelatine, which, as before observed, 
contains three or four per cent, less of carbon than albumen con- 
tains, enters into the structure of every part of the animal frame, 
and especially of the skin: the skin indeed consists of little else be- 
sides gelatine : it is most probable, therefore, that a large part of the 
carbonic acid of venous blood is formed in the skin, and in the 
analogous textures. Indeed, we know that the skin of many ani- 
mals gives off carbonic acid, and absorbs oxygen ; in other words, 
performs all the offices of the lungs ; a function of the skin per- 
fectly intelligible, on the supposition that near the surface of the 
body, the albuminous portions of the blood are always converted 
into gelatine. With respect to the aqueous vapour thrown off from 
the lungs : we have every reason to believe, as before stated, that 
much of this vapour is derived from the chyle, in its passage through 
these organs ; and that by such separation of water, the weak and 
delicate albumen of the chyle, is converted into the strong and per- 
fect albumen of the blood ; according to the principles detailed at 
the commencement of this chapter. 

Thirdly. What are the uses of the continual extrication of car- 
bonic acid from living animals ; and could not a little superfluous 
carbon have been thrown off from their bodies in a more simple 
manner? The precise use of the constant evolution of carbonic 
acid, or how it is effected, we know not ; but one great use which 
has been assigned to this evolution, is, the formation of the heat of 
the body ; and not only the power of forming that heat ; but also 
the power of varying it according to circumstances — a power so 
characteristic of organized life. Out of the body, carbon does cer- 
tainly give off heat on combination with oxygen. Hence, it has 
been maintained with great plausibility, that the same combination, 
within a living body, may give origin to its heat; though it must be 
confessed, that there are some difficulties about this view of the 
origin of animal heat, which detract considerably from its likeli- 
hood. Moreover, it is exceedingly probable, that though the evolu- 
tion of carbonic acid gas, may be one of the means possessed by 



256 CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION. 

the animal economy for generating heat ; there are yet other means, 
the nature of which at present are quite unknown. 

The quantity of carbon thrown off by the lungs, is very abundant ; 
but has probably been much overrated. Philosophers have, for in- 
stance, calculated that the lungs of a man of ordinary size expel, in 
the course of twenty-four hours, eleven ounces of carbon ; a quantity 
more than equal to that contained in six pounds of beef.* If carbon 
be indeed thrown off from the lungs so copiously ; it must be pro- 
duced in the body. It is difficult to account for the quantity of car- 
bon thrown off, even on the lowest estimate. We are, therefore, 
necessarily obliged to concludes that more solid matter is every day 
expelled from the body by the lungs, than in any other manner. 
Hence the probability of the opinion formerly noticed, that the mat- 
ters taken up by the absorbents, and by the veins, enter successively 
into the formation of various parts of the animal frame; instead of 
being removed, immediately after their absorption, as at present is 
generally supposed. For it seems hardly possible to reconcile, with 
the quantity of food, the great quantity of carbon that is expelled 
from the lungs alone ; much less, what must be expelled if all the 
matter taken up by the absorbents be likewise considered excremen- 
titious. 

4. Of Secretion. — From the blood, are formed, by means of pecu- 
liar apparatus, all those numerous products termed Secretions ; not 
only so unlike each other, but so unlike the fluid from which they 
are originally separated. Some of these secreted products appear 
to be little else, than a separation of certain matters already existing 
in the blood. Other secretions have no resemblance to any ingredient 
of blood : consequently, in the glandular structure, by which these 
secretions, so dissimilar to the blood, are formed, the blood must un- 
dergo some essential change. In the present state of our informa- 
tion, however, we must content ourselves with a limited insight into 
the nature and the causes of secretory action. We see that secreted 
products are of two kinds; that some of the matters separated by 
animal bodies are evidently thrown off, on account of their noxious 
qualities; are, in fact, excretions; which could not be retained with- 
out proving fatal to the life of the animal from which they are de- 
tached : while others again, are as obviously intended for further ob- 
jects, and for the performance of various subordinate actions in the 
living system; are in fact, secretions: properly so called. But as 
we have stated, we are still perfectly unacquainted with the intimate 

• According to an elaborate analysis, by Berzelius, the muscle of an animal 
contains 77 per cent, of water, and 2.1 per cent, of other matters. Supposing', 
what is near the truth, that 22 of these 23 parts consist of albumen, and tint this 
albumen contains half its weight of carbon ; which in round numbers is sufficient!} 
neat, approximation \ it follows, that 100 parts of the muscular fibre of animals, 

contain about 11 parts of carbon ; so that 11 ounces of carbon must represent U'O 
ounces of beef; that is, upwards of six pounds as stated in the text. 



RECAPITULATION AND REFLECTIONS. 257 

nature of these changes ; though it is probable that a careful exami- 
nation of the phenomena, would throw much light on their general 
character ; and display evidence of the most consummate design. 

5. Spontaneous decay of Organized Bodies. — It remains finally to 
close this work with a few observations on the spontaneous, and 
inevitable decay, of all those things that are produced by organiza- 
tion ; after they have been removed from the influence of the organic 
agents, by which the combination of their constituent principles was 
effected. 

The organized beings that inhabit this globe, however numerous, 
have a very small relation to the magnitude of the globe, and seem 
to occupy its surface only. We have seen that the elements forming 
the structure of these beings, are not only combined in different pro- 
portions, but that they appear, in many instances, to undergo further 
decomposition into ultimate forms of matter, which, out of a living 
body do not, and perhaps, in the present constitution of the universe, 
cannot, exist in an isolated state. Owing to this diversity in the com- 
position of organized beings from that of inorganic matter, and to 
other causes which will readily occur to the reader, organized be- 
ings and their laws, are in continual opposition to the general laws, 
by which inorganic matter is governed. To counteract, therefore, 
these opposite laws, and to maintain the existence of organized be- 
ings, require the unremitting efforts of the organic agency. But at 
length these efforts are exhausted ; the contest ceases ; when the 
general laws of inorganic nature prevail, and speedily reduce, to 
their original state of existence, the atoms which had been incarce- 
rated in the living frame. 

The spontaneous decay of organized beings is usually termed the 
putrefactive process ; and some substances are much more prone 
than others, to undergo that change. As might be expected ; those 
substances whose constitution is most simple, as the oils, and bodies 
of a like nature, are also the most permanent ; while substances 
more compounded, especially those which include azote, are exceed- 
ingly liable to putrescent change. For such changes a certain de- 
gree of heat and of moisture appear to be necessary : since in a tem- 
perature below the freezing point of water, or in a perfectly dry 
state of the atmosphere, even animal substances may be preserved 
unchanged during any length of time. The phenomena attending 
the dissolution of different kinds of organized matters are of course 
different ; but in every instance, the tendency is toward the forma- 
tion of compounds more simple than the matter decomposed ; that is 
to say, of compounds whose existence, out of a living body, is not 
incompatible with the present state of the globe. Those matters 
which, in a warm and damp air, seem first to be loosened from or- 
ganic combination, are those foreign bodies we formerly mentioned, 
as existing, in every part of the structure of organized beings, in some 
unknown but active self-repulsive state. Hence, during putrescent ac- 

22* 



258 CHEMISTRY OF ORGAXIZATION". 

tion, arises the formation of sulphuretted and phosphoretted hydrogen, 
and of other undefined compounds of the same elements : and these 
gaseous compounds, chiefly, produce the very offensive odour of putre- 
faction. At the same time, there are formed, carburetted hydrogen, oil, 
acetic acid, ammonia, and last of all, carbonic acid gas and water ; 
while the azote is extracted in a gaseous condition. Finally, both 
vegetable and animal matters, but vegetable matters more especially, 
are reduced to the state of mould. The mould from vegetable mat- 
ters, consists principally of carbon, in combination with a little oxy- 
gen or hydrogen : the mould from animal products, consists of simi- 
lar matters, mixed with a little azote, and the usual saline ingredients 
of organized substances. In this form of mould, the remains of ve- 
getables and of animals, as was before stated, constitute the food of 
plants ; by which they are again organized, and thus go through the 
same series of changes. 

We may here pause for a moment, and, on account of the general 
reader, briefly recapitulate the most striking facts, that have been de- 
tailed in the present, and in the preceding chapters. 

In this first place, the mechanical arrangements for reducing the 
food of animals to the proper degree of comminution, are wonder- 
fully varied, according to the peculiar qualities of that food. In the 
graminivorous and granivorous tribes, for example, the teeth are 
literally instruments for grinding or triturating herbaceous matters, 
and seeds. In carnivorous animals, such a structure would be use- 
less ; the teeth therefore, are suited only for cutting, or tearing. In 
gnawing animals, the teeth present a totally different structure, but 
at the same time are admirably fitted to the habits of the animal. 
Occasionally, as in the fowl tribe of birds, the grinding apparatus is 
placed, not in the mouth, but in the stomach itself; this organ being, 
as it were, expressly contrived for trituration ; while some of the 
functions it performs in other animals, are transferred to contiguous 
parts. 

The structure and mechanism of the stomach, and of the alimentary 
canal, then claim our particular attention. In carnivorous animals, 
whose food requires comparatively little assimilation, the alimentary 
canal is short, and of a simple structure. On the other hand, in vegeta- 
ble feeders, that canal is long and complicated ; but perfectly adapted 
for macerating their food, and for extracting from it, everything that 
can be converted into nourishment. Nor is there an adherence to 
any model, but the whole is throughout varied ; as if in order to de- 
monstrate the power and the wisdom of Him by whom they were 
contrived. Thus the alimentary canals of the cow, and of the horse. 
are formed on entirely different models ; though the food of both ani- 
mals be nearly the same. 

We proceed in the next place, to the consideration o\" the chemi- 
cal changes, which the food undergoes in the stomach and duodenum. 
In these changes we discover arrangements not less wonderful, in- 



RECAPITULATION AND REFLECTIONS. 259 

deed more wonderful, than in those of structure and of mechanism. 
The variety of forms, assumed by bodies having the same essential 
composition, produces a latitude, in the choice of diet, which is al- 
most infinite : at the same time, the organs being endowed with the 
power to discriminate all these differences, and to act on the ultimate 
principles of bodies ; elaborate, from all these various forms of matter, 
the same uniform resulting chyle. The power by which the stomach 
is enabled to effect these astonishing changes, is the power which it 
possesses, of associating the different alimentary substances with 
water ; the power, in short, of dissolving or digesting them. This 
dissolving power seems to be exerted through the agency of chlorine, 
derived from the common salt in the blood; at least, chlorine is al- 
ways present in the stomach, during the act of the solution of the 
food; though the precise mode in which it operates, is still unknown. 
Contemporaneously with the act of solution of the food, such essen- 
tial changes take place in its composition, as are requisite for per- 
fecting the future chyle. 

The stomach having accomplished its office, the digested mass en- 
ters the duodenum ; where the series of changes is continued in a 
manner equally wonderful. In the duodenum, the digested mass is 
brought in contact with the biliary and the pancreatic fluids. The 
alkali of the bile unites with the acid, with which the food had been 
mingled during its digestion in the stomach; the excrementitious 
parts, both of the food, and the bile, are separated or precipitated ; 
while at the same time, the proper chylous principles are eliminated, 
in a condition appropriate for their absorption by the lacteals. 

There are two divisions of these minute tubes, that compose what 
is termed the absorbent system of animals ; — the lacteals — and the 
absorbents properly so called. The ultimate ramifications of the lac- 
teals, originate from the internal surface of the alimentary canal, 
where they take up the digested, and partly assimilated, element or 
chyle. The ultimate ramifications of the proper absorbents, originate 
from all parts of the body ; and are enabled to take up, by some 
peculiar process, every component of the body, solid as well as fluid, 
in the same manner as the chyle is taken up by the lacteals. 

The fluid obtained from the lacteals, and that obtained from the 
proper absorbents, are both alike albuminous. The albumen of the 
chyle, as we have formerly shown, is produced in the stomach and 
duodenum, while the food is undergoing the process of digestion. 
But whence is the albumen derived, that is found in the proper ab- 
sorbents '\ The animal body we know to be composed of a great 
variety of matters, among which gelatine predominates. Now, since 
albumen only is found in the absorbents, it follows, that before the 
gelatine of the body is taken up by the absorbents, it is reconverted 
into albumen : in other words, the absorbed gelatine undergoes a 
process, entirely analogous to that which gelatine, and other matters, 
undergo in the stomach and duodenum, during the process of diges- 



260 CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION. 

tion. Hence, the digestive process, instead of being confined to the 
stomach and duodenum, is actually carried on without intermission, 
in all parts of a living animal body. 

The two kinds of fluid albumen derived from these two sources ; 
that is to say, the crude chyle in the lacteals, and the highly animal- 
ized lymph in the absorbents, are at length commingled; and form 
one uniform fluid of an intermediate character, adapted for becoming 
a part of the general mass of the blood. The character however of 
this fluid, when it becomes part of the blood, though albuminous, is 
still very weak; that is to say, the fluid consists of albumen, holding 
a large proportion of w 7 ater in a state of essential combination. By 
a beautiful arrangement, as soon as this weak albuminous fluid is 
mingled with the blood, it is hurried through the lungs ; where it 
undergoes a remarkable change. In the lungs, the water, which is 
in essential union with the weak albuminous matter of the chyle, is 
separated and expelled along with the carbonic acid gas, which is 
continually escaping from these organs; and at the same time, the 
weak and delicate albuminous matter of the chyle, is converted into 
the strong and firm albuminous matter of the blood. We are thus 
brought to consider the process of respiration. 

The blood, in its course through the lungs, emits carbonic acid 
gas, and assumes a florid arterial colour. At the same time, ac- 
cording to the principles of gaseous diffusion, the blood absorbs, in 
the lungs, a portion of oxygen from the air of the atmosphere. The 
oxygen thus absorbed, remains in some peculiar state of union with 
the blood, (Query, as oxygenated water, or some analogous com- 
pound ?) till the blood reaches the ultimate terminations of the arte- 
ries. In these minute tubes the oxygen changes its mode of union ? 
it combines with a portion of carbon, and is converted into carbonic 
acid ; which carbon must be derived from the albuminous princi- 
ples of the blood. Two distinct alterations take place during the 
union of the carbon with the oxygen : a portion of the albumen 
contained in the blood is supposed to be reduced to the state of gela- 
tine ; which gelatine is appropriated toward the renovation of those 
textures whose composition is chiefly gelatinous: at the same time, 
the carbonic acid which had been formed from the reduced albumen, 
unites with the blood, communicates to that fluid its dark venous 
colour, and is transferred to the lungs; where it is expelled from the 
system, along with a portion of aqueous vapour, derived principally 
from the weak albumen of the chyle ; as formerly explained. 

The blood is the source, not only of all the constituent principles 
of animal bodies, but likewise of all the various secretions; many of 
which differ altogether, in their properties, from those of the primary 
fluids, and perform secondary offices, of great importance in the ani- 
mal economy. Other products separated from the blood, arc purely 
excretions; as, for instance, the carbonic acid gas from the lungs; 
which could not be retained in the animal system without destroying 
life. 



RECAPITULATION AND REFLECTIONS. 261 

Finally, the life of the animal becoming extinct, the essential pro- 
perties of the matter of which it is composed, resume their natural 
action, and speedily restore the elements to their original condition. 

Such is a summary of those operations of living bodies, which, in 
the present and in the preceding chapters, we have endeavoured to 
illustrate; and though our insight into those operations be very im- 
perfect, it is amply sufficient to satisfy us, of the infinite wisdom by 
which they are directed ; and that the unknown, must be far more 
wonderful than what has been disclosed. Most of the facts on which 
we have dwelt, are of a character so obvious, that they require only 
to be understood, in order to be admitted among the proofs of the 
great argument of design ; at least, by all, but those who affect to 
deny that argument. We therefore leave to the reader, the appli- 
cation of facts, so obviously demonstrative of design : and proceed 
to offer a few remarks on certain general arrangements of organized 
and living beings, relatively to those of inorganic matter. 

First. In considering the economy of organized beings, one of the 
circumstances most calculated to arrest our attention, is the extra- 
ordinary skill manifested in the disposal of the various parts of the 
organized system, with regard to each other. As an instance, on 
the great scale, may be noticed, the mutual relation and dependence 
of plants and animals. Thus, as we formerly pointed out, carbonic 
acid gas constitutes the chief food of plants ; and we now see, that 
nearly the whole of the superfluous carbon produced by the opera- 
tions of the animal system, is actually thrown off in the form of car- 
bonic acid. Plants, therefore, on the one hand, supply the chief 
nourishment to animals; while that gaseous matter which is separated 
by the animal economy, and which if retained within animals, would 
to them be fatal, constitutes, on the other hand, the chief food of 
plants. Nor in these two respects only, are the two great systems 
of organization mutually dependent; for unless plants consumed the 
carbonic acid gas which is formed by animals ; this deleterious com- 
pound would probably accumulate in the atmosphere, so as to des- 
stroy animal life ; while it is doubtful, whether the present races of 
vegetables could exist, if carbonic acid gas were not formed by ani- 
mals. Again, the general scheme of Providence, for the nourish- 
ment of animals, claims our especial notice. Animals have not only 
been destined to prey on each other : but all created beings are the 
food of those progressively higher than themselves, in the scale of 
organization. By this wise arrangement, the labour of the assimi- 
lating power has been ^really diminished ; and by the same means, 
that accumulation of dead animal remains which soon would be 
overwhelming, is entirely prevented. Even in the fabric of indivi- 
dual animals, and in the operations carried on within them, the same 
wise purposes of mutual relation and dependence are observable. 
Thus, whether we contemplate the repeated employment of the same 
materials; or the various important ends, in many instances accom- 



262 CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION. 

plished by the same process ; we discover, throughout, the utmost 
abrigdment of labour ; so that the greatest possible effect, is every 
where produced, by the simplest possible means. 

Secondly. The general subserviency, of the mechanical arrange- 
ments of the frame of organized beings, to the chemical operations 
that are carried on within them, is of still greater interest and im- 
portance, than even those arrangements have been shown to be. 
We may view an organized being as a piece of intricate machinery, 
adapted to the physical, and the chemical properties of matter. 
The adaptation of this machinery to the physical properties of mat- 
ter, belongs to another department. Our attention is directed solely 
to the chemical adaptations. The performance of the chemical 
changes within organized beings, through the interposition of me- 
chanical arrangements, as has been stated in a former part of this 
work, establishes, beyond a doubt, that these chemical changes have 
a real existence. Thus, when we witness such a display of elabo- 
rate arrangements, as are exhibited in the mechanism of the diges- 
tive organs, and of the circulating system ; the purpose of which ar- 
rangements is merely to produce a few chemical changes in the 
food, and in the blood ; it is evident that the chemical changes so 
produced, must be at least as real, as the mechanical structure, by 
means of which they are effected. Hence the adaptations of me- 
chanical arrangements, in the structure of organized beings, to the 
pre-existing chemical properties of matter, affords an evidence of 
design, not less impressive than unequivocal. The most determined 
sceptic cannot assert that there is any necessary relation, or indeed 
any relation whatever, between the mechanical arrangements, and 
the chemical properties to which they administer. There is no rea- 
son why the chemical changes of organization, should result from 
the mechanical arrangements, by which they are accomplished : 
neither is there the slightest reason, why the mechanical arrange- 
ments in the formation of organized beings, should lead to the 
chemical changes of which they are the instruments. From what 
cause, then, arose the association of the chemical changes with the 
mechanical arrangements? How were the chemical operations of 
digestion and of respiration brought into union with the mechanical 
apparatus of digestion, and with the circulating system 1 The co- 
existence of things so entirely dissimilar, and having no kind of 
mutual relation, can be explained only on the supposition that a irill 
exists somewhere; and also a power to execute that will. The exist- 
ence is thus unavoidably acknowledged of a Being, who knowing 
every pre-existing chemical property of matter, and willing to 
direct these properties to a specific object, has contrived tor that 
purpose an apparatus admirably fitted to attain His object Such is 
the explanation — the only possible explanation, of the subserviency 
of mechanism to chemistry, in the processes oi' organic life. And 



RECAPITULATION AND REFLECTIONS. 263 

what is this explanation, but our argument of design, in terms that 
seem absolutely irresistible? 

Thirdly. That perpetual renovation and decay to which all or- 
ganized beings are liable, may be considered as a part only of the 
great round of changes, which we witness in everything that has 
been created. The world itself, as we have seen, appears to have 
been, at intervals, subjected to changes involving even the funda- 
mental laws by which it is governed. Nothing, therefore, belonging 
to the world, can reasonably be expected to be permanent. Had 
there been even an approach to such permanence, the beautiful 
adaptations of organized beings to the pre-established laws of in- 
animate matter, and all the other wonderful arrangements we have 
described, could not have been manifested as they now are. Be- 
sides, to the changes we ourselves undergo, we are indebted for the 
greater part of the enjoyments of our life. If none died, none could 
be born; and the present arrangements of human society could 
have no existence. There would be no.ne of the pleasing relations 
of parent and offspring; none of the agreeable variety of child- 
hood, of youth, of maturity, and of age, experienced by every in- 
dividual; which, with all the other numerous relations of society, 
incidental to the persons of different individuals, contribute so largely 
to human happiness. Were man exempt from change ; whether the 
rest of the world were supposed to be progressive, as it is ; or whe- 
ther it were stationary, as regards him : the same uniform and dull 
monotony would prevail, the same want of motive. In short, with 
our present constitution and feelings, perpetuity and uniformity 
would be physically and morally impossible. 

But why, it has a thousand times been asked, why has the world 
been so constituted? Why this unceasing round of change? 
Whence its origin? What its object? — Such questions, the Great 
Author of the universe alone can answer. But as within those nar- 
row limits by which our observations are bounded, wherever we 
can trace His designs, we see that His works are never without an 
object; we cannot doubt that in determining their perpetual change, 
there is no less an object ; though it be above our comprehension. 
By placing immaterial and intelligent beings, for a time, in personal 
connexion with matter, He has indeed communicated to them a 
knowledge of those properties of matter which so strikingly display 
His wisdom and power; and this may have been one of His ob- 
jects; — but to speculate further on points so utterly beyond our 
capacity, would be presumptuous : for who can " know the mind of 
God, or who hath been His counsellor ?" 



We have thus given a brief outline of what has been denomi- 
nated the Chemistry of organization ; in other words, an account 



264 CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION. 

of those changes and combinations which, through the operation 
and the agencies of inorganic matter, organic agents are capable 
of effecting. The information it has been in our power to give, 
though imperfect, we have shown to be amply sufficient, not only to 
demonstrate the astonishing wisdom, and foresight, with which or- 
ganized beings, in as far as we can understand them, have been con- 
trived and formed; but the infinitely higher perfection of both these 
attributes, requisite to impart to organization that vitality, the nature 
of which so entirely surpasses our conception. 

We shall now close this volume with a few observations on the 
future progress of chemistry ; on the means by which this science 
may be applied to physiological research ; and on the tendency of 
physical knowledge in general. 

Chemistry as we pointed out in the introduction to this treatise, 
forms the connecting link between those branches of human know- 
ledge which are founded on quantity, and those which are derived 
solely from experience. All our experimental knowledge that is not 
chemical ; for instance, all that physiology w 7 hich relates to the 
phenomena of life, is wholly removed from the logic of quantity, 
and depends entirely on observation. Now so far as the logic of 
quantity is applicable, so far are we certain of our conclusions, as 
certain at least as we are of our own existence, or that we see and 
hear. But when this logic cannot be applied, our conclusions are 
no longer such as must be — no longer follow from our premises a 
necessary consequence; but are only, for the most part, such as 
may be ; that is to say, have no more than that degree of probability 
which arises from the evidence we have of the truth of the phe- 
nomena or events, forming our premises. 

In all knowledge depending on mere observation or experiment, 
what we know, is grounded on our own observation and experience, 
or on the observation and experience of others. What we our- 
selves observe, we too often observe very imperfectly ; or do not 
understand, when observed. But phenomena or events, the know- 
ledge of which we are obliged to receive at second hand, on the 
testimony of others ; and which may have been observed through 
the distorted medium of ignorance or of prejudice — may even have 
been wilfully misrepresented — of these we have a still less assu- 
rance. If a phenomenon or event has happened only once, and be 
therefore historical ; we are under the necessity of acquiescing in 
its truth, or of estimating its probability, according to the rules of 
evidence. If the phenomenon or event be of frequent occurrence, or 
if its nature be such, that it is capable of being brought under our 
own observation ; in order to remove our uncertainty, we endea- 
vour to observe it ourselves; in short, we make an experiment. 
Such is the method we pursue, in obtaining all that knowledge 
which is the result of mere observation. The different events suc- 
ceed one another, but we know not wherefore; we see not their 



CONCLUSION. 265 

mutual connexion. We believe that an event will, 'probably, follow 
another event ; because the one event has always followed the 
other, or because of some other probability; but we cannot dis- 
cover that necessary connexion between the two events, which so 
irresistibly leads us to determinate conclusions, where we can apply 
the laws of quantity. 

The foregoing remarks may be viewed as a continuation of those 
offered in the introduction to this volume, and chiefly relate to the 
progress of chemistry. Chemistry being a science of observation, 
we can form but a very imperfect conception of its future progress ; 
because, we cannot, by reasoning, anticipate the discovery of those 
chemical facts which are yet concealed. The progress that che- 
mistry, within these few years, has made, is truly astonishing ; and 
when a more rigorous mode of observation shall be adopted — in 
short, when chemistry shall be brought more under the control of 
the laws of quantity — a control that will be exercised at least indi- 
rectly — it is impossible to foretell the degree of perfection which 
chemistry, as a science, may attain. But, for many years yet to 
come, the progress of chemistry must depend solely on experiment; 
and its cultivators must be satisfied with the comparatively humble 
office, of discovering the actual chemical changes, which bodies 
effect on each other. 

Since, then, in knowledge derived from observation, an acquaint- 
ance with what exists, and with what is done, is indispensable ; to 
obtain a clear, accurate, and unequivocal conception of these things, 
is the first duty of every observer, and of every experimentalist. 
Nor is there any observer, or experimentalist, however unpretending, 
who may not add to the stock of ascertained facts ; so varied and 
inexhaustible are the stores of nature. Another duty of every one 
who engages in observation or experiment, is to become the faithful 
historian of what he witnesses ; to narrate the event or phenomenon 
in plain and intelligible language, employing only terms of a definite 
meaning; so as to convey to others a just notion of what he has 
seen. We say a just notion : in the greater number of instances, a 
perfect notion is impossible ; because what is seen, cannot be ex- 
pressed by language. But to give a just notion ; that is to say, a 
notion which, though incomplete, has no foreign or false gloss, is 
within the power of every observer ; and to give such a notion of 
the facts he narrates, ought to be his chief study. One testimony of 
so faithful a witness is often invaluable, and worth a thousand vague 
and inaccurate observations ; which are only calculated to bewilder, 
or to mislead ; and thus are worse than useless. 

The next rule which an interpreter of nature should bear in mind, 
is not to attempt too much at first; but in order to establish a sure 
foundation for his succeeding labours, he ought to be content with 
obvious and unexceptionable facts ; and so to arrange these facts, as 
to lead to others. To elicit novel and prominent facts, is the lot of 

23 



266 CHEMISTRY OF ORGANIZATION. 

few ; and any one may happen to be so successful. But all. as 
before stated, may investigate truth ; and thus contribute more or 
less towards the advancement of knowledge. Moreover the hum- 
blest contributors may rest assured, that they are imperceptibly 
raising a structure, which will sooner or later include the conspicu- 
ous labours of their more fortunate coadjutors; in which structure, 
these labours will indeed still appear conspicuous ; though their im- 
portance will be diminished as the fabric is extended around them. 

The remarks just made, have especial reference to the applica- 
tion of chemistry to physiology. The cautious and judicious appli- 
cation of chemistry to physiology has already effected much, and is 
capable of effecting still more. Indeed it is hardly possible to say, 
how far chemistry may extend physiological knowledge. But 
chemistry, in its present state, in order to be made really useful, 
must be applied in a manner the most guarded and sparing — must, 
indeed, be rigidly confined to the ascertainment of what the living 
principle does ; and how it operates on inorganic principles. With 
the living, the animative properties of orgenized bodies, chemistry 
has not the smallest alliance; and probably will never, in any 
degree, elucidate these properties. The phenomena of life, are not, 
even remotely, analogous to anything we know in chemistry, as 
exhibited among inorganic agents. The great error of chemists, 
therefore, has been their attempting to apply that science to explain 
phenomena, for the explanation of which, chemistry, as we have 
said, is totally valueless. Such perversion of the reasoning powers, 
has too much prevailed among physiologists in all ages. In the 
earlier ages, heat was considered the principle of life. In later 
times, electricity has been discovered; and to electricity, the same 
functions have been ascribed. Life, according to other philosophers, 
is motion. But the progress of science has dispelled all these illu- 
sions : the origin of the obscure and evanescent principle of life, 
must be sought elsewhere. By heat, for example, many wonderful 
things may be accomplished; but heat will not act itself. The 
powers of electricity are still more wonderful than those of heat : 
but. electricity, we know to be governed, in its mode of action, by 
certain laws, and that it gives no sign of intelligence. In the same 
manner, life, as we are acquaintad with it, cannot exist without 
motion; but motion can exist without life. Life and motion, conse- 
quently, are not synonymous terms; nor can we conceive the exist- 
ence of motion, without a mover. In short, the living principle, as 
already pointed out, is something different from, and superadded to 
the common agencies of matter; over which, to a certain extent, it 
has a control. Thus, the phenomena exhibited by the mysterious 
agency of life, are strictly comparable only with one another : and 
bare no relation to any inorganic phenomena. 

But the desire of the Physiologist to ascribe to the agencies oi 
inorganic matter, those operations carried on within living bodies, is 



CONCLUSION. 267 

merely a display of that innate propensity of the human mind, which 
leads us to seek after First Causes. The conceptions of the physio- 
logist regarding the principle of life are the same, therefore, as the 
conceptions of mankind in all ages regarding the Great First Cause 
— the Deity himself. The poor untutored savage " sees God in 
every cloud, and hears him in the wind." The complacent philoso- 
pher smiles at the credulity of the savage, and perhaps defies "the 
laws of nature !" Both are alike ignorant; nor is the imagined Su- 
preme Being of the untaught savage, in any degree, more absurd, 
than the imagined Pantheism of the philosopher. The winds we 
know can be referred to other causes, to which they are immediately 
owing : so with the progress of knowledge, the " laws of nature," 
have been found to merge, and will continue to be found to merge, 
into other laws, still more general ; thus proving that these laws are, 
all alike, mere delegated agencies. Hence the tendency of know- 
ledge, and of its due application, is to abstract the attention from 
inferior things, and to fix the mind on the source of all knowledge 
and of all power — the Great First Cause ; who exists and acts 
throughout the universe ; whom we can approach only, by studying 
His work; and whose works, an eternity will be inadequate to 
explore. 



APPENDIX, 

CONTAINING 

ADDITIONAL NOTES AND EMENDATIONS. 



Page 20. — " Forces of Gravitation." — Many objections have been 
offered to the term vis inertice adopted by Newton. Indeed, to speak 
of mere inertia, or inactivity, as a force, is obviously absurd. We have 
always agreed with those who think that the term inertia has been 
unfortunately chosen ; since inertia expresses only one quality, as it 
were, of that which is attracted, or which reacts, in nature. But, 
we fully acquiesce in the opinion, that whatever resists attraction or 
reacts, is as appropriately named a force, in a certain sense of that 
term, as that which attracts or acts ; and such resistance is in all in- 
stances, virtually considered as a force by the mathematician, how- 
ever he may choose to designate it. 

Page 28. — We fear the terms chemical and cohesive axes are not 
quite legitimate. We have employed these and other familiar modes of 
expression, such as ''forces of gravitation," " polarizing forces" &c. 
above alluded to, either on account of the general reader, for whom 
this work is principally intended, or for the sake of analogy. 

Page 36. — Elementary form of electrical energies, &c. Through- 
out this work, as just observed, we have adhered as much as possi- 
ble to the common language of chemistry. We conceive, however, 
that chemical, and the allied, phenomena admit of being expressed in 
terms of hypotheses, of which the chief are the following : — 

1. That every portion of matter attracts, and is attracted by, every 
other portion of matter, according to laws which have obtained uni- 
versal assent. 

2. That all matter, as it is known to us, exists in the condition of 
molecules ; which molecules we consider to be virtually spheres or 
spheroids. 

3. That all the spherical or spheroidal molecules, when unimpe- 
ded, revolve on their axes, with velocities, which in molecules having 
the same weight, are under similar circumstances, fixed and definite : 
but which velocities, in molecules of different weights, increase, ac- 
cording to a law which need not be here specified, as the weights of 
the molecules diminish. 

4. That the molecules of the imponderable matters, light and heat, 



APPENDIX. 269 

are vastly less than those of any ponderable substance ; hence, that 
the velocities of the molecules composing these imponderable mat- 
ters, are inconceivably rapid ; further, that the substance of these 
molecules is either fluid or elastic, so that they become more or less 
oblate, in proportion to the intensity of their motion. 

5. That the imponderable molecules of light and heat obey the 
same laws by which ponderable matters are governed ; but that these 
imponderable molecules are capable of pervading and operating 
within ponderable molecules, whose motions they influence by the 
intensity of their own motion ; and that the molecules of imponder- 
able matters thus appear in the character of agents. 

Page 49, note. — The term " homogeneous" light is a misprint : we 
mean the unaltered light of the sun. Light and heat, and indeed all 
self-repulsive fluids may be supposed to possess two kinds of self- 
repulsive power : that which is common to them as fluids ; and that 
which depends upon the action of individual molecules of such fluids 
when in certain positions, and which positions, these molecules are 
naturally inclined to assume under certain circumstances, particu- 
larly when in motion. Hence the marshalling of the individual 
molecules of light, supposed in this note, probably do not exist, at 
least so as to become apparent, till the light approaches, or passes 
through some ponderable medium. These phenomena of light, may 
perhaps, be rendered more intelligible, by what appears to happen 
with respect to gaseous bodies. The rapidity of the motion of gaseous 
bodies, through any permeable medium, increases as their specific 
gravity diminishes. Thus the force with which, the lightest of these 
bodies, hydrogen, struggles to escape through any porous matter, is 
almost incredible ; according to Mr. Graham's experiments, sufficient 
to raise a column of water from 20 to 30 inches. This rapidity of 
motion seems only explicable on the supposition, that the individual 
molecules of the gas, in their passage through narrow canals, are 
guarded from external and lateral influence ; and are thus enabled 
to assume that position which is natural to them, and in which their 
mutual self-repulsion is the greatest possible. Hence, a single row of 
self-repulsive molecules of gas (or other self-repulsive fluid) passing 
through the minute apertures of a porous vessel into a vacuum, or 
what is analogous, into another gas having different self-repulsive 
powers, may be compared to a row of bullets urged by an elastic 
fluid, in quick succession through a gun barrel : but with this differ- 
ence, that the gaseous molecules propel each other ; instead of being, 
like the bullets, propelled by a foreign agency. The explanation now 
offered of the passage of the molecules of gas through a narrow 
canal, or through any porous matter, may, as we have said, be ap- 
plied, not only to the passage of light and heat through various me- 
dia; but also to the passage of liquids through various bodies, by the 
processes which have been termed endosmose and exosmose. Do these 
forces operate also in capillary attraction ? 

23* 



270 



APPENDIX. 



Page 112— TABLE OF TEMPERATURES.— (from 









Position. 






Isothermal 
zones. 


Names of places. 








Mean 

temperature 

of the 

year. 


Latitude 
north. 


Longitude. 


Height in 
feet. 


o' 


Nain 


57° 8' 


61°20'w 





26.42° 


Tf 


*Enontekies . . . 


68 30 


20 47 e 


1356 


26.96 


o 

8 


Hospice de St. ~) 
Gothard 5 ' 


46 30 


8 23 e 


6390 


30.38 


£ 

p 


North Cape . . 


71 


25 50 e 





32.00 


w 


*Uleo 


65 3 


25 26 e 





35.08 


a 
o 


*Umeo .... 


63 50 


20 16 e 





33.26 


cd 


*St. Petersburg . . 


59 56 


30 19 e 





38.84 


£ 


Drontheim . . . 


63 24 


10 22 e 





39.92 


o 


Moscow . . . 


55 45 


37 32 e 


970 


40.10 


m 


Abo 


60 27 


22 18 e 





40.28 




*Upsai 


59 51 


17 38 e 





42.80 




♦Stockholm . . . 


59 20 


18 3 e 





42.26 




Quebec . . . . 


46 47 


71 10 w 





41.74 




Christiana . . . 


59 55 


10 48 e 





42.08 


6 
© 
it) 

O 


♦Convent of Pey-> 

senburg 3 

♦Copenhagen . . 


47 47 
55 41 


10 34 e 
12 35 e 


3066 



42.98 
45.68 


o 


♦Kendal . . . . 


54 17 


2 46 w 





46.22 


■* 
£ 


Malouine Islands . 


51 25 


59 59 w 





46.94 


o 
w 


*Prague . 
Gottingen . 


• • 


50 5 

51 32 


14 24 e 
9 53 e 



456 


49.46 
46.94 


o 


* Zurich . . 


. . 


47 22 


8 32 e 


1350 


47.84 





♦Edinburgh . 


, . 


55 57 


3 10 w 





47.84 


JS 


Warsaw 




52 14 


21 2 e 





48.56 


o 

CD 


*Coire . . 


. . . 


46 50 


9 30 e 


1876 


18.02 


~ 


Dublin . 


, , 


53 21 


6 19 w 





19.10 




Berne 


. . . 


46 5 


7 26 e 


1650 


19*28 




^Geneva . 


• . . 


46 12 


6 8e 


1080 


49.28 




*Manheim 


• . . 


49 29 


8 28 e 


432 


50.18 




Vienna . 




48 12 


16 22 e 


420 


50.54 



■ At the places thus distinguished, the temperatures 



APPENDIX. 



271 



ENCYCLOPEDIA METROPOLITANA. ARTICLE METEOROLOGY.) 



Distribution of heat in 


the different seasons. 


Maximum a 


id minimum. 


Mean 

temperature of 

winter. 


Mean 

temperature of 

spring. 


Mean 

temperature of 

summer. 


Mean 

temperature of 

autumn. 


Mean temp. 

of warmest 

month. 


Mean temp. 

of coldest 

month. 


—0.60° 


23.90° 


48.38° 


33.44° 


51.80° 


—11.28° 


+ 0.68 


24.98 


54.86 


27.32 


59.54 


—0.58 


18.32 


26.42 


44.96 


31.82 


46.22 


+ 15.08 


23.72 


29.66 


43.34 


32.08 


46.58 


22.10 


11.84 


27.14 


57.74 


35.96 


61.52 


7.70 


12.92 


33.80 


54.86 


33.44 


62.60 


11.48 


17.06 


38.12 


62.06 


38.66 


65.66 


8.60 


23.72 


35.24 


61.24 


40.10 


64.94 


19.58 


10.78 


44.06 


67.10 


38.30 


70.52 


6.08 


20.84 


38.30 


61.88 


40.64 


— 


— 


24.98 


39.38 


60.26 


42.80 


62.42 


22.46 


25.52 


38.30 


61.88 


43.16 


64.04 


22.82 


14.18 


38.84 


68.00 


46.04 


73.40 


13.81 


28.78 


39.02 


62.60 


41.18 


56.74 


28.41 


28.58 


42.08 


58.46 


42.98 


59.36 


30.20 


30.74 


41.18 


62.60 


48.38 


65.66 


27.14 


30.86 


45.14 


56.84 


46.22 


58.10 


34.88 


39.56 


46.58 


53.06 


48.46 


55.76 


37.40 


31.46 


47.66 


68.90 


50.18 


— . 


— 


30.38 


44.24 


64.76 


48.74 


66.38 


29.66 


29.66 


48.20 


64.04 


48.92 


65.66 


26.78 


38.66 


46.40 


58.28 


48.56 


59.36 


38.30 


28.76 


47.48 


69.08 


49.46 


70.34 


27.14 


32.36 


50.00 


63.32 


50.36 


64.58 


29.48 


39.20 


47.30 


59.54 


50.00 


61.16 


35.42 


32.00 


48.92 


66.56 


49.82 


67.28 


30.56 


34.70 


47.66 


64.94 


50.00 


66.56 


34.16 


38.80 


49.64 


67.10 


49.82 


68.72' 


33.44 


32.72 


51.26 


69.26 


50.54 


70.52 


26.60 



given are the result of at least 8000 observations. 



272 



APPENDIX. 



TABLE OF TEMPERATURES. 



Isothermal 
zones. 








Position. 


Mean 

temperature 

of the 

year. 


Names of places. 


Latitude. 


Longitude. 


Height in 
feet. 


o' 
«s 

o 

o 

o 

lO 

S 
o 

<M 

<d 

c 
o 

N 

. rt 

s 

o 


*Clermont 
*Buda . . . 

Cambridge, (U. 
♦Paris . 
*London . . 

Dunkirk . . 

Amsterdam . 

Brussels . . 
*Franeker 

Philadelphia 

New York . 
♦Cincinnati . 

St. Malo . 

Nantes . . 

Pekin . . 
♦Milan . . . 

Bordeaux 


S. 




45°46' 

47 29 
42 25 

48 50 
51 30 

51 2 

52 22 
50 50 
52 36 

39 56 

40 40 
39 6 
48 39 
47 13 
39 54 
45 28 
44 50 


3° 5'e 

19 lE 

71 3 w 

2 20 e 

5 w 
2 22 e 
4 50 e 
4 22e 
6 22e 

75 16 w 

73 58 w 

82 40 w 

2 1 w 

1 32 w 
116 27e 

9 He 
34 w 


1260 

494 


222 








510 




390 



50.00° 

51.08 

50.36 

51.08 

50.36 

50.54 

51.62 

51.80 

51.80 

53.42 

53.78 

53.78 

54.14 

54.68 

54.86 

55.76 

56.48 


09 
{ft 

ii 

5 S 

c p 


Marseilles . 

Montpellier 
*Rome . . . 

Toulon . . 

Nangasacki . 
♦Natchez . . 






43 17 
43 36 
41 53 
43 7 
32 45 
31 28 


5 22e 
3 52 e 

12 27E 

5 50 e 

129 55 e 

90 30 w 







180 


59.00 
59.36 
60.44 

62.06 
60.80 
64.76 


« Eo" 
c co 


*Funchal .... 
Algiers .... 


32 37 

36 48 


16 56w 

3 lE 






68.54 
69.98 


i! 

5 « o 
fi 

N 


*Cairo .... 
*Vera Cruz . . 
*Havannah . . . 
^Cumana .... 


30 2 
19 11 
23 10 

10 27 


31 18 e 
96 1 w 
82 1 3 w 
65 15 w 









72,38 

77.7'J 
7S.08 
81.86 



At (he places thus distinguished, the temperatures 



APPENDIX. 



273 



(continued.) 



Distribution of heat i 


a the different seasons. 


Maximum and minimum. 


Mean 

temperature of 

winter. 


Mean 

temperature of 

spring. 


Mean 

temperature of 

summer. 


Mean 

temperature of 

autumn. 


Mean temp. 

of warmest 

month. 


M?an temp. 

of coldest 

month. 


34.52° 


50.54° 


64.40° 


51.26° 


66.20° 


28.04° 


33.98 


51.08 


70.52 


52.34 


71.60 


27.78 


33.98 


47.66 


70.70 


49.82 


72.86 


29.84 


38.66 


49.28 


64.58 


51.44 


65.30 


36.14 


39.56 


48.56 


63.14 


50.18 


64.40 


37.76 


38.48 


48.56 


64.04 


50.90 


64.76 


37.75 


36.86 


51.62 


65.84 


51.62 


66.92 


35.42 


36.68 


53.24 


66.20 


51.08 


67.28 


3560 


36.68 


51.08 


67.28 


54.32 


69.08 


32.90 


32.18 


51.44 


73.94 


56.48 


77.00 


32.72 


29.84 


51.26 


79.16 


54.50 


80.78 


25.34 


32.90 


54.14 


72.86 


54.86 


74.30 


30.20 


42.26 


52.16 


66.02 


55.76 


66.92 


41.74 


40.46 


54.50 


68.54 


55.58 


7052 


39.02 


26.42 


56.30 


82.58 


54.32 


84.38 


24.62 


36.32 


56.12 


73.04 


56.84 


74.66 


36.14 


42.08 


56.48 


70.83 


56.30 


73.04 


41.00 


45.50 


57.56 


72.50 


*60.08 


74.66 


44.42 


44.06 


56.C6 


75.74 


60.98 


78.08 


42.08 


45.86 


6774 


75.20 


62.78 


77.00 


42.26 


48.38 


60.80 


75.02 


64.40 


77.00 


46.40 


39.38 


57.56 


82.94 


64.22 


86.90 


37.40 


48.56 


65.48 


79.16 


66.02 


79.70 


46.94 


64.40 


65.84 


72.50 


7232 


75 56 


64.04 


61.52 


65.66 


80.24 


72.50 


82.76 


60.08 


58.46 


73:58 


85.10 


71.42 


85.82 


56.12 


71.96 


77.90 


81.50 


78.62 


81.86 


71.06 


71.24 


78.98 


83.30 


78.98 


fe3.84 


69.98 


80.24 


83.66 


82.04 


80.24 


84.38 


79.16 



given are the result of at least 8000 observations. 



274 APPENDIX. 

Page 142, note. — We have stated that the diffusion of the same 
air, and of the same vapour at different temperatures, are inferences 
only from the supposed general law of the diffusion of gaseous bo- 
dies ; and have alluded to the existence of modifications of that 
general law. To those who feel an interest in such inquiries, the 
following additional remarks may be not unacceptable, as pointing 
out the grounds from which we infer such diffusion of the same 
air and vapour; and the modifications, to which we have no doubt, 
it will be found to be liable. 

Let us suppose a flexible air-tight bag to be furnished with a stop- 
cock ; and to be filled with hydrogen gas, under exactly the same 
pressure, and having the same temperature as the surrounding at- 
mosphere. Let us now suppose the stop-cock to be opened. Imme- 
diately, the hydrogen in the bag, and the exterior atmospheric air, 
will begin to commingle, with a force and velocity proportional to 
the quantity of the gas diffused ; and which quantity varies inversely 
as the square roots of the specific gravities of hydrogen gas, and of 
atmospheric air ; that is to say, the volume of atmospheric air dif- 
fused inwards, being supposed to be equal to 1, the volume of hy- 
drogen diffused outwards, will be equal to 3.8 nearly. The diffusion 
of hydrogen and atmospheric air of the same temperature, and un- 
der the same pressure, is an instance of the simplest form of gase- 
ous diffusion ; and is, we believe, the only form of diffusion, which 
has been experimentally investigated. The phenomena attending 
the diffusion of these two bodies show, that, all other circumstances 
being supposed to be alike, the diffusion of gases is influenced solely 
by the difference of their specific gravities. 

We have stated the case of the diffusion of two gaseous bodies 
having the same temperature. Their temperature however, may 
vary within any limits ; and though the law of diffusion may be 
modified, diffusion will continue to take place, (except at those tem- 
peratures at which the specific gravities of the two gases become 
equal, at which temperatures there will be no tendency to diffusion) ? 
provided difference of specific gravity alone be the cause of diffu- 
sion. But if the diffusion of different gases at different tempera- 
tures be admitted, it seems to follow, that different portions of the 
same gaseous body under the same pressure, but having different 
temperatures, and consequently different specific gravities, will like- 
wise have a tendency to diffusion. 

The case we shall next suppose is dissimilar to the two foregoing 
cases, but is deducible from the same premises: it is the case of the 
diffusion of the same vapour, as of the vapour of water, which may 
be illustrated in the following manner : 

Let us suppose our apparatus to contain atmospheric air. having 
tlic temperature of 100°, and saturated with water; while the ex- 
terior atmospheric air is at the temperature of 60°, and is likewise 
saturated with water; and that the pressure on the air confined in 
the bag, is the same as the external pressure. We suppose the pre- 



APPENDIX. 275 

sence of air in the apparatus, in order that it may be able to sustain 
the atmospheric pressure ; for, as we formerly stated, vapour alone, 
at ordinary temperatures, exerts elastic forces very different from, 
and far inferior to the elastic force of air at these temperatures. 
Such being supposed to be the state of the air contained in our ap- 
paratus, what will happen on the opening of the stop-cock 1 The 
air within the bag will have the same tendency to diffusion, as the 
contents of the bag supposed in the last case ; but the vapour with 
which the air is associated will have an opposite tendency. The 
warmer vapour within the apparatus, instead of being, like the 
warmer air, lighter ; will have a greater specific gravity than the 
colder vapour associated with the external air. Consequently, the in- 
ward tendency to diffusion, that is to say, the tendency of the 
colder vapour without the apparatus, to diffuse itself among the 
molecules of the warmer vapour within will be greater than the out- 
ward diffusive tendency of the vapour in the apparatus. Such will 
be the opposing diffusive tendencies of warm vapour and of warm 
air in a state of commixture ; and if the air were absent, the diffu- 
sive tendency of vapour alone would have a similar diffusive ten- 
dency to that which it has, when mixed with air ; though that ten- 
dency would, of course, be not exactly the same as when modified 
by the influence of the air. The vapour within, and the vapour 
without the apparatus, would each exert the elastic forces peculiar 
to their respective temperatures as vapour. 

There would, however, be a striking difference between the phe- 
nomena attending the diffusion of vapour, (whether mixed or un- 
mixed with air), and that of air itself at different temperatures. 
Two portions of air at different temperatures would cease to have 
any diffusive tendencies as soon as their temperatures became uni- 
form. The temperature of two portions of vapour becoming 
uniform, would, of course, produce, in the same manner, a cessa- 
tion of their diffusive tendencies ; but the circumstances accompa- 
nying that cessation would be altogether different. The colder 
vapour without the apparatus, being the lighter, would move with 
accelerated velocity into, or toward, the heavier warm vapour 
within the apparatus ; while that warm vapour, in moving outward, 
would be instantly condensed ; and thus its diffusive powers would 
be annihilated. On these grounds we advanced the opinion, that 
probably, there may, under certain circumstances, exist in the at- 
mosphere, a tendency to diffusion from above downwards ; the va- 
pour in the higher regions of the atmosphere, being relatively 
lighter than the vapour below. 

The observations that have been offered in this note, regard the 
only circumstance which is yet known to cause a difference in this 
diffusive tendency of gaseous bodies, namely, the difference of their 
specific gravities. If there be other causes of such difference ; and 
it is almost certain that there is one other cause ; the effects pro- 



276 



APPENDIX. 



duced by these causes may be very different. The difference in the 
diffusive power of the same gaseous body, is not perhaps, under any 
circumstances, very remarkable ; but there will probably be found 
to be a much greater difference in the diffusive power of vapours ; 
though it is not easy to form even a conjecture as to the extent of 
that difference. In the present state of uncertainty therefore on 
those points, we have thought it right to speak of a tendency to 
diffusion, rather than of diffusion, as a thing actually existing. The 
diffusive powers of elastic fluids are at present very little understood 
or appreciated. They constitute, however, as we have said, one of 
the most interesting and important subjects in physics, and would 
amply repay whoever would take the trouble to investigate them. 

Page 184. — The table follows, illustrating the distribution of 
plants over the globe, to which we have referred in the text. It has 
been copied immediately from Lindley's Introduction to Botany. 



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